@f00l You can be a Grinch Goat. It’s your fault that I finished tossing antiquated Christmas decorations, dusted my hands, then discovered two more large bins.
@OldCatLady I thought Christmas decorations were supposed to be antiquated? I used to shop at antique stores & flea markets to find nice stuff instead of the junk typically sold at big-box stores.
I don’t buy any more cuz what I have fills up a decent tree.
@compunaut These were just 30 year old plastic wreaths and tree which shed. Plastic fir tree ‘needles’ and ‘poinsettias’ are ugly and useless. If you store plastics in 120 F heat, they disintegrate. Never should have bought them to begin with. The antique mercury glass tree ornaments, OTOH, will look good under glass, because cats.
I also blame you for the fact that I keep leaning over to the front passenger door despite the fact I could just use my key…
Take another blame for the fact that I just realized that I could manually lock it…
(The reason that it doesn’t lock when I put my car in drive is that considering cops wouldn’t necessarily find that helpful, and this was recently a cop car in Florida…)
@f00l I’d blame you for something right now but it would just give you more fodder with which to try to get me goated next year so I’ll just stick with blaming you for my inability to blame you for that which you rightly deserve blaming.
@f00l you are a bad liar… you have been itching to be goat for months, which is why I didn’t vote for you… just drop the act and embrace what you have desired for so long.
I am @f00l and I approve of your lame-assed protest.
I might be a liar, can’t remember. As for wanting to be Goat, I’ll get to that story eventually, but basically you are incorrect. At least partially so.
I admit to having invited it by attracting notice.
I blame you for the fact that our perfectly adequate artificial Christmas tree somehow could not survive another summer in a TX attic.
I’m thinking no tree at home this year.
Significant travel during holidays anyway, but still…
How about a local Fortune 500 sized company I deal with? Love the place. But the receptionist retired, they have new employees. One of whom decided the 14 foot artificial tree was “dead” and took it to the dumpster.
I actually don’t have any Halloween stuff for my tree, surprisingly. I don’t even have any Nightmare Before Christmas ornaments. It’s mostly traditional glass balls and a bunch of paper hearts and cones that our family made when I was a kid. Half of my ornaments are lost in the attic that I cannot get into. My brother usually goes up there for me, but I doubt I’ll see him before Christmas. Those ornaments were things like Scooby doo, Star Trek and Star Wars stuff.
I’ve thought about doing a themed tree of some sort, but I can’t decide what.
Also,
I blame you for the fact that the shower handle/lever broke off in my hand. With the water running.
I blame you for the fact that the only way to turn off the shower was to throw on some shorts & a t-shirt (not a cat shirt) while still soaking wet, run to the street, and crank the water shutoff. In the dark. Did I mention it was only about 50F outside? I mean, I’m half Norwegian and all, but still…
I blame you for the fact that it took me almost an hour to figure out how to disassemble that hardware so that the shower stays off. Since the rest of the household prefers to have running water available.
I blame you for the fact that now I have to use the Jacuzzi for bathing until the damn shower is fixed
Sux and all. But hey, discipline. And I know damned well it ain’t all that cold here, remember?
Ok. If you’re wet. Ok ok ok. Cold.
One shower??? You’re in a vintage place? If you also have a tub, can you convert?
Re jacuzzi: I had to “bathe” in a swimming pool once. Because housesitting, rural, water pump broke. Bottled water, Sponge bath, sponge rinse, jump in pool to get the rest off.
Because I was busy doing my stupid fucking job as a stupid fucking goat typing out my stupid fucking replies because I was too fucking stupid to go fucking check at stupid midnight eastern time to see what the fucking fuck was up. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
Oh, yeah, sorry. Lost my train of thought for a sec.
@PlacidPenguin don’t forget @harrison! actually @shawn and @harrison are better at server performance stuff than i am. i just look at new relic and throw out guesses, which are usually wrong.
@CaptAmehrican
/8ball Is @f00l approving of all the blames in third person to make up for the lack of goaty responsibilities by the last two goats? Yes
As long as you react and take blame and all - or react and curse like @carl669 - or react and insist you are a penguin like @PlacidPenguin - or react and tell stories like @BillLehecka - and you are reasonably decent and not morally repulsive - you can do whatever you want. And since one is on display, there’s an encouragement built in the situation to let one’s inner devils loose a bit or act a small part. One is taking in a role that includes both the court jester and the karmic debt holder of the tribe.
Once my “victory” seemed more likely (@jbartus for promoting me and @PlacidPenguin for assuring this karma entrapment), I began poking around to see what other goats had done. Just got started.
The early goats are harder to track, since the blame is spread over just any thread, not confined and pinned to a focus point thread. @Pavlov had a great contest/reward thing going before his accident. Others did their own contests. @Ignorant almost disappeared, but made it kinda funny. Each one was creative. I really want to read some of @joelmw’s insanely long-winded essays as goat. (He can make me look concise).
And the after way too little sleep for a week and surely-I-can-dodge-this-fantasies, goatdom hit and I @f00lishly had no prep. No fuko either.
Way to go. Wow scapegoat.
I must accept responsibility for this minor disaster. Ok. Onward.
@f00l And you can have this slightly used, since I have already posted it in a goat thread before, then someone borrowed it and posted it in another goat thread… so third time is the charm perhaps?
I blame you that I’ve been sick all week. I blame you that my hair is all jacked up right now because I had my roots bleached, but have been too sick to put purple back in, so it’s blonde at the top, then a weird lavender because my stylist did something weird and claimed it was toner, then hot pink, and finally, the bottom half is my normal purple. I have to wear a hat to leave the house until I feel better.
I blame you that I can’t figure out some things on my new car, too. Like, I should be able to enter a menu to change the autolock settings, but that stupid menu won’t come up no matter what I do. Totally your fault.
I’d blame you that I didn’t get a fuko, but I don’t really care about those anymore.
Also, I’m pretty sure it’s your fault that my puppy doesn’t like it when I brush my hair instead of brushing him.
Since you don’t care about fukos anymore I will omit the my ritual whining.
Sorry to hear about your being sick. I have heard that some pups have healing properties.
Sorry about the hair tho it sounds delish as is. Hope you get it fixed as you like soon.
Sorry about the hat.
Sorry about the confusing car menu. I presume those are designed by persons who have never and will never use one.
Not sorry about the puppy who seems lovely. Are you sure you want to mess with your hair since you could hang with the pup instead?
@f00l He’s currently laying across the bed on my feet, preventing me from going to my daughter’s school to help sort a fundraiser. He’s doing his best to help me feel better by forcing me to stay home and rest.
And yeah, he’s quite pretty.
@f00l Congrats on your goatiness. But I always hesitate with congratulations as I have always seen the GOAT badge as a punishment. Anyway, have fun with it.
@jbartus I blame @f00l right back again. It was 33 F here last week, and I had to wear my sneaker bootie slippers, which were too warm. I still can’t find the damned socks, but it’s going to be 80 F all next week, so it doesn’t matter.
And I accepted sandals in winter and sandals in the snow like they do in Colorado. And sandals with sox and toe-sox.
And I accept open-air toes as long as no one is @f00l enuf to be in sandals or flip-flops and shorts, deep into very high grass, and (wow-look-at-that!) 4 feet from a rattler.
No one would ever be that dumb. Right?
No wonder non-@f00ls wear boots and jeans in high-grass rural areas. Hey! They have good reasons for those boots!
@f00l ritual preemptive group apologies do not apply here. And I still blame you for no fuko even though I didn’t try. I blame you for not trying too. And had I tried I’d blame you for being a robot which is the usual cause of not getting one. So no matter what I blame you. : )
ritual preemptive group apologies do not apply here. And I still blame you for no fuko even though I didn’t try. I blame you for not trying too. And had I tried I’d blame you for being a robot which is the usual cause of not getting one. So no matter what I blame you. : )
(Wait a sec, gotta catch my breath first)
I accept responsibility for your not getting a fuko even tho you didn’t try.
I accept responsibility for having misread the situation and offered you a Ritual Apology.
I accept responsibility that the ritual apology was lame anyway.
I accept responsibility for having not tried to get a fuko at midnight eastern.
I accept responsibility for having tried to get a fuko at 8am eastern and failed.
i accept responsibility for having tried to get a fuko at 4pm eastern and failed. Fuck dammit for that.
I accept responsibility for trying to convince myself all day long that Fukos are worthless nothings designed to induce hysterical stupid mass behavior and that I’m above all that I don’t want one anyway.
I accept responsibility for failing to finally convince my reptile brain and my competitive brain and my “smart” brain that I didn’t want one.
I accept responsibility for having wanted one even tho I’m embarassed to admit it.
I accept responsibility for admitting it anyway.
I accept responsibility for not being entirely “above all that”. Or perhaps for not being even a little “above all that”.
I accept responsibility for the fucking capcha.
I accept responsibility for not being a Robot.
Wait a min.
Hmmm.
I accept responsibility for being a Robot.
I accept responsibility for being the sort of Robot whose programming evaluates the Three Laws as being “ok once, but very pre-millennium by today’s standards”. Fuck those. Asimov, Where Art Thou?
I accept responsibility for being the sort of Robot who is no better at capchas than the lame-ass humans.
I accept responsibility for being a Robot who possesses an inferior instruction set and fucked over algorithms and bad wiring due to the Robits who designed me having been way too Robot-stoned when they did the work. They think it’s funny.
@f00l I unblame you because I finally found my rechargeable batteries, changed the ones in the solar patio lights, and they work perfectly. The batteries and charger were in the ‘Hurricane Supplies’ box. They were useless during the hurricane, because I hadn’t charged them. Whose fault was - oh. Mine.
I accept responsibility that at some point in the next three months I’m gonna wish I were in Florida.
I accept blame that at some point over the next few hurricanes I’m gonna be glad not to be too near the coast. Unless the coast shifts a bit nearer, which it might.
@PlacidPenguin@f00l and I blame you both (yes one is a retroactive blame) that I don’t have ESP - both of you as I could have used it last month and could use it this month too.
And yes, you are getting blamed for the tattle button’s proximity to the reply button. I didn’t click any further on that report, though. I was “Oh, somebody missed the reply button again. They’ll figure it out, I guess.”, and left it at that.
@f00l Aha! The Goatly Duties are accumulating like a load of snow on the roof. Soon they’ll crash through and you’ll be like ‘What just happened?’. I suppose you could wear a pointy elf goat hat to fend off the avalanche.
I accept blame for your not wanting to send a pm to narfcake on woot.
Since I know the username, if you wish, send me the pm for @narfcake. I’ll play the cutout, and no one will ever know you two communicated.
All very Spy Vs Spy.
Oh yeah I totally completely utterly cross-my-heart will not read anything you want forwarded. No way. Not a word. Never would. Ever ever ever. I promise. You gotta believe.
William Wallace never met the Isabella, She-Wolf of France, who was still seriously 3 years old in France at the time. And who was every bit as ruthless as portrayed here and more, after she finally crossed the channel.
Isabella’s husband, Edward Ii, was a dickhead of a king for a while. They (Isabella and some nobles) are said to have gotten v serious revenge on him much later.
There is no record of the English doing that “first night” stuff, although they were vile and contemptuous in other ways.
Edward I, daddy-king, was a serious warrior and ruthless motherfucker in matters of war and not to be crossed. Records don’t make him out to be a psychopath when not at war tho. Also really tall. “Longshanks” IRL.
That blue face-paint 1000 years out of date. But so cinematic.
Kilts didn’t show up for another 400-500 years.
“Braveheart” historically refers to Edward the Bruce, not to William Wallace. The Scots do tend to know Scottish history, but Hollywood scriptwriters do not.
William the Bruce never directly betrayed William Wallace.
William Wallace resigned from his army due to some failures and spent several years hiding in England in exile before his arrest.
And.
So visually fun that you can watch it on a loop. Just assume all the history is on a par with Snow White.
And you can kinda play that score non-stop.
James Horner, you are an asshole for crashing your plane instead of writing more scores.
@f00l Nitpicky: Gilgamesh claimed ‘first night’ rights. The custom apparently really did continue. Snopes goes into much detail.
/8ball Can I blame this on the Goat? It is certain
@OldCatLady
/8ball should you blame the goat? You may rely on it
From my very limited reading, the references are either literary, or historically not contemporary, and no source ever cites specifics.
The whole thing is provocative and disgusting, so it makes for a powerful potential continuing myth, since everyone can imagine it. Or it may have been a real feudal practice here and there. Certainly some of those lords were nasty enough that if they wanted to do this, their consciences would hardly stop them. And with almost no power and no communication available to the serfs and peasants, the only stories that might travel might well have the feel of myth once those stories had made it out to the wider world.
If it was real, there are no contemporaneous historical accounts. And certainly no accounts that Edward I ever offered that to English nobles
And there are practical risks to a lord: desease, obviously; assassination or assassination attempts, that night or later; a lord who acted out this practical might well fear to walk or ride his estates in solitude, a fear which other lords would view with contempt. If this practice were known to the lord’s peers or to the clergy, the lord would start to have problems in relations with church, court and king; and in a society interlaced with church and aristocratic social power, the lord would have social rejection and potential problems finding highborn and well-connected spouses for his children once word was out.
A lord was, after all, far wealthier and more powerful than 99%+ of everyone else. Most lords who wanted mistresses could afford and get multiple ones if they chose: women not from the peasant classes would have better manners and education, and potentially be less of a health risk. And they and their families might well be honored by the lord’s interest and wish to extend the lord’s “patronage” of the woman and her family as far as they could.
Which isn’t to say there weren’t oceans-full of forced marriage, abuse, assault, degradation; and following silence to protect the aristocracy. Just that this particular practice seems to be more myth than fact.
Except that I get my info on the net, so ignore me.
I really like this poem, even if a line or two doesn’t quite wear well by common values today.
Disclaimer: I don’t know anything about poetry or literature.
Skunk Hour By Robert Lowell Published 1958
(For Elizabeth Bishop)
[Dedication: Lowell’s poem is modeled on Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “The Armadillo,” which Bishop had dedicated to Lowell.]
Nautilus Island’s hermit
heiress still lives through winter in her Spartan cottage;
her sheep still graze above the sea.
Her son’s a bishop. Her farmer
is first selectman in our village;
she’s in her dotage.
Thirsting for
the hierarchic privacy
of Queen Victoria’s century,
she buys up all
the eyesores facing her shore,
and lets them fall.
The season’s ill—
we’ve lost our summer millionaire,
who seemed to leap from an L. L. Bean
catalogue. His nine-knot yawl
was auctioned off to lobstermen.
A red fox stain covers Blue Hill.
And now our fairy
decorator brightens his shop for fall;
his fishnet’s filled with orange cork,
orange, his cobbler’s bench and awl;
there is no money in his work,
he’d rather marry.
One dark night,
my Tudor Ford climbed the hill’s skull;
I watched for love-cars . Lights turned down,
they lay together, hull to hull,
where the graveyard shelves on the town. . . .
My mind’s not right.
A car radio bleats,
“Love, O careless Love. . . .” I hear
my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell,
as if my hand were at its throat. . . .
I myself am hell;
nobody’s here—
only skunks, that search
in the moonlight for a bite to eat.
They march on their soles up Main Street:
white stripes, moonstruck eyes’ red fire
under the chalk-dry and spar spire
of the Trinitarian Church.
I stand on top
of our back steps and breathe the rich air—
a mother skunk with her column of kittens swills the garbage pail
She jabs her wedge-head in a cup
of sour cream, drops her ostrich tail,
and will not scare.
Note: this poem was included in the very influential book Life Studies; the poems within were simple and raw in contrast to his earlier style. The book won the National Book Award for poetry.
Lowell suffered all his life from manic-depression and was repeatedly hospitalized.
He had this to say about writing, from the later poem Epilogue:
But sometimes everything I write
with the threadbare art of my eye
seems a snapshot,
lurid, rapid, garish, grouped,
heightened from life,
yet paralyzed by fact.
All’s misalliance.
@f00l
Just in case anyone actually likes the poem, here is another R Lowell poem I like.
[For those who don’t know, Hart Crane was a mid-century American poet and wild man of great promise who killed himself at age 32. Critically he is controversial: he has a small devoted fanbase. This poem is Robert Lowell’s tribute, imagining Crane’s own thoughts.]
Words for Hart Crane
Robert Lowell
“When the Pulitzers showered on some dope
or screw who flushed our dry mouths out with soap,
few people would consider why I took
to stalking sailors, and scattered Uncle Sam’s
phoney gold-plated laurels to the birds.
Because I knew my Whitman like a book,
stranger in America, tell my country: I,
Catullus redivivus, once the rage
of the Village and Paris, used to play my role
of homosexual, wolfing the stray lambs
who hungered by the Place de la Concorde.
My profit was a pocket with a hole.
Who asks for me, the Shelley of my age,
must lay his heart out for my bed and board.”
[‘Words for Hart Crane’ is excerpted from Lowell’s Collected Poems.]
@f00l My mistake. I apologize. I blame you for not being able to get rid of the german cockroaches in my apartment nor the flour moths despite buying sticky card things, hot shot liquid poison stuff and the apt complex using gel poison (they were there when I moved in - numbers are down but not gone). Sigh.
A box which was supposed to be shipped 6 weeks ago still hasn’t been shipped, thus incurring a fee for usage of the item even though it never left the box.
@PlacidPenguin
Snow in Dec on NYC area does sound like kinda the local weather has it in for you. I accept blame for this.
Don’t quite understand the biz about the box that didn’t ship, and the usage fee, and how that managed not to get dealt with, but I do accept blame for it.
I also accept blame for not quite understanding what’s going on.
I tormented this thread last night by putting poetry in it. The most unread of the written literary arts. Still perhaps useful to a few?
What next?
Short excerpts from a book? No spoilers?
Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy
By John Le Carré
Published 1974
(It’s tricky to do this - wish for no spoilers - no dialogue because too much backstory and character info would be needed, tho Le Carre is a master at dialogue - just wish to offer a feel to the prose.)
(The recent film has its qualities, but is only barely about the book in outline. The earlier BBC miniseries w Alec Guinness did better with the source material, yet still barely touches on the riches to be had for art of reading.)
They were extraordinary nights for Smiley, alone up there on the top floor. Thinking of them afterwards—though his days between were just as fraught, and on the surface more eventful—he recalled them as a single journey, almost a single night. “And you’ll do it,” Lacon had piped shamelessly in the garden. “Go forwards, go backwards?” As Smiley retraced path after path into his own past, there was no longer any difference between the two: forwards or backwards, it was the same journey and its destination lay ahead of him. There was nothing in that room, no object among that whole magpie collection of tattered hotel junk, that separated him from the rooms of his recollection. He was back on the top floor of the Circus, in his own plain office with the Oxford prints, just as he had left it a year ago. Beyond his door lay the low-ceilinged anteroom where Control’s grey-haired ladies, the mothers, softly typed and answered telephones; while here in the hotel an undiscovered genius along the corridor night and day tapped patiently at an old machine. At the anteroom’s far end—in Mrs. Pope Graham’s world there was a bathroom there, and a warning not to use it—stood the blank door that led to Control’s sanctuary: an alley of a place, with old steel cupboards and old red books, a smell of sweet dust and jasmine tea. Behind the desk Control himself, a carcass of a man by then, with his lank grey forelock and his smile as warm as a skull.
Now for a while Lacon’s files, instead of Smiley’s memory, once more took up the story. It was typical of the atmosphere of those last months that, having been brought in on the affair at the beginning, Smiley should have received no subsequent word of how it had developed. Control detested failure as he detested illness, and his own failures most. He knew that to recognise failure was to live with it; that a service that did not struggle did not survive. He detested the silk-shirt agents, who hogged large chunks of the budget to the detriment of the bread-and-butter networks in which he put his faith. He loved success, but he detested miracles if they put the rest of his endeavour out of focus. He detested weakness as he detested sentiment and religion, and he detested Percy Alleline, who had a dash of most of them. His way of dealing with them was literally to close the door: to withdraw into the dingy solitude of his upper rooms, receive no visitors, and have all his phone calls fed to him by the mothers. The same quiet ladies fed him jasmine tea and the countless office files that he sent for and returned in heaps. Smiley would see them piled before the door as he went about his own business of trying to keep the rest of the Circus afloat. Many were old, from the days before Control led the pack. Some were personal, the biographies of past and present members of the service. Control never said what he was doing. If Smiley asked the mothers, or if Bill Haydon sauntered in, favourite boy, and made the same enquiry, they only shook their heads or silently raised their eyebrows towards paradise: “A terminal case,” said these gentle glances. “We are humouring a great man at the end of his career.” But Smiley—as he now patiently leafed through file after file, and in a corner of his complex mind rehearsed Irina’s diary to Ricki Tarr—Smiley knew, and in a quite real way took comfort from the knowledge, that he was not after all the first to make this journey of exploration; that Control’s ghost was his companion into all but the furthest reaches; and might even have stayed the whole distance if Operation Testify, at the eleventh hour, had not stopped him dead.
It was almost four o’clock on the afternoon of the same day. Safe houses I have known, thought Guillam, looking round the gloomy flat. He could write of them the way a commercial traveller could write about hotels: from your five-star hall of mirrors in Belgravia, with Wedgwood pilasters and gilded oak leaves, to this two-room scalp-hunters’ shakedown in Lexham Gardens, smelling of dust and drains, with a three-foot fire extinguisher in the pitch-dark hall. Over the fireplace, cavaliers drinking out of pewter. On the nest of tables, sea-shells for ashtrays; and in the grey kitchen, anonymous instructions to “Be Sure and Turn Off the Gas Both Cocks.” He was crossing the hall when the house bell rang, exactly on time. He lifted the phone and heard Toby’s distorted voice howling in the earpiece. He pressed the button and heard the clunk of the electric lock echoing in the stairwell. He opened the front door but left it on the chain till he was sure Toby was alone.
Or if one is really ambitious (and would like to contribute to the loose track problem) they can write a Tanka which is:
five/seven/five/seven/seven syllables, usually with a space after the Haiku portion so looks like this:
Keep in mind that @f00l started at least 4 hours and 37 minutes later into the day than I did.
(Time is based on threads were posted for this month and last month. Considering that reach of those was at least a couple of minutes after the badge was given…)
Since this is the meh Blame thread and I turn a BIG birthday age number on December 20 --So who can I blame for being so old-- guess I shall blame my parents…not @f00l as he is being blamed enough - actually sure @f00l can’t be blamed for that one …
@AttyVette Blame doctors who patched you up in the emergency room, police who stopped baddies who were determined to erase you personally, leaders who sent intelligence agents to gather information from hostiles bent on destroying you and yours.
@fool, where is the Flying Cars poll thread? I have so much to say about them. I must educate the poor, misguided souls who think they may be a good idea.
Meanwhile, spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to acquire something quickly, only to remember that I have 2 of that something sitting right near me.
@PlacidPenguin Oooh! Let’s try to guess what irreplaceable files you lost:
Your Bitcoin wallet?
Your secret password vault?
Your SSH private keys?
Your encryption keys?
@f00l btw I don’t know which is the correct word- blame or unblame…“that is the question” ( little part of a Shakespeare quote thrown in for good measure)
@PlacidPenguin you are missing a great taste ! I eat them plain sometimes… but then again, I was born in Southern part of Texas and lived in the valley at one time They say avacados are high in healthy fats so try one out!
@AttyVette Do not try avocado ice cream. One of my housemates made it once (as in home made avocado ice cream) and it ice cream could mold in the freezer it would have. It tasted like a freshly mowed lawn smells.
The formatting is important for this one. Can’t do that properly here
"Poetry"
Marianne Moore
1924 version.
I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all
this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a
high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. When they become so derivative as to become
unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something to
eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf
under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that
feels a
flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician–
nor is it valid
to discriminate against 'business documents and
school-books’; all these phenomena are important. One must
make a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
result is not poetry,
nor till the poets among us can be
’literalists of
the imagination’–above
insolence and triviality and can present
for inspection, ‘imaginary gardens with real toads in them’, shall
we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry.
Was walking around without an umbrella in a combo of rain, sleet, and snow unable to find my car even with the help of Google Maps/Google Now due to the fact I didn’t want to hold my phone in weather conditions such as they were.
I blame you because my power went out an hour after the crazy lightning storm and I was finishing a movie. I have five minutes left.
I also blame you because I was reading a cookbook and thinking about baking cookies.
I also blame you because they updated the estimated time of completion of repairs from 10:45pm to 1:15am.
Now my cookies will have to wait. I will not be able to sleep because I’ll be thinking about the ending of that movie, and I’ll surely be sweating because Florida.
@PlacidPenguin Mercy (the Netflix film, apparently there’s another film by the same name)
I didn’t really like it… But it drew me in and I wanted to know what happened. It had a couple of twists that threw me off.
@f00l at 10pm they updated the repair to be completed at 11pm, so I was hopeful. I laid down because I was hot. It was way too humid to open the windows. They didn’t end up fixing it until 1:30am.
I suppose I should unblame you because it did get fixed.
Just imagine, this could have all been aimed at @jbartus. And to be honest, I was leaning towards voting for him. However, something came to my attention.
No. However, I think that there may have been more posts of a certain variety, and I wouldn’t have been able to tolerate that. Thus, the @f00lish goat.
@f00l Saw another form of syllabic poetry you may want to try when haiku ends in ‘oops’. It goes:
Two syllables
then four
then six
then eight
and ends (dramatically) with another two.
Sort of on-topic for the 75th Anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Harbor
Audible Daily Deal
Grunt
by Mary Roach
$2.95
Good till midnight Pacific Time
Bestselling author Mary Roach explores the science of keeping human beings intact, awake, sane, uninfected, and uninfested in the bizarre and extreme circumstances of war.
Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier’s most challenging adversaries - panic, exhaustion, heat, noise - and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them. Mary Roach dodges hostile fire with the U.S. Marine Corps Paintball Team as part of a study on hearing loss and survivability in combat. She visits the fashion design studio of U.S. Army Natick Labs and learns why a zipper is a problem for a sniper. She visits a repurposed movie studio where amputee actors help prepare Marine Corps medics for the shock and gore of combat wounds. At Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, in east Africa, we learn how diarrhea can be a threat to national security. Roach samples caffeinated meat, sniffs an archival sample of a World War II stink bomb, and stays up all night with the crew tending the missiles on the nuclear submarine USS Tennessee. She answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks? How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit? Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks? Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you’ll never see our nation’s defenders in the same way again.
@PlacidPenguin Nope you are not. Go back to the “tattle” portion of the thread. Two there. Might be more but I stopped when I had evidence of lack of innocence LOL
@PlacidPenguin
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@f00l I blame you for rare side effects from medication after mouth bone surgery that might result in me having to have further surgery. Is that a good enough blame? And I blame you I am behind in grading because of that. And I further blame you that I am sick of soft food. And that I am awake at this hour because after I bought all the fucking (that’s for the fuck count for you @carl669) required medication, including the one that I got the side effects from - that was a wasted $20, I had no money left for pain meds and ice is not cutting it. And I blame you for challenging you to accept the haiku challenge and you did. Am I done yet? No. I blame you because I have crap in the car I should have brought inside but because of where I now live going to the far end of the parking lot after dark invites encounters with undesirables and instead of being out of sight the stuff is in sight. I will blame you in the morning if I then have a broken window. Ok. I think I am done now. If you have another blame drought I am sure I can oblige you. You are welcome.
Actually I am quite sincerely sorry about just fuck near everything, esp the surgery and the pain and the meds and the side effects and oh yeah the pain and the entire life sux aspect.
@f00l is quite sorry
About terrible haikus
Inflicted on Meh.
@f00l takes the blame for
Evil dark parking lot and
Some safety issues.
@f00l sympathizes
That stuff is in sight instead
Of hidden away.
Could you, like, repost the link to the GoFundMe or something? Think it would be ok with the Meh Powers?
@f00l hopes you give all
Students A’s while not thinking
About it much.
Had a friend who was new hire prof at a pretty decent uni teaching a bunch of the intro calculus courses. Which are, of course, a requirement and gateway into science, pre-med, and engineering majors.
The uni had extensive tutoring and workgroup sessions available, several times a day Mon-Sat.
He graded somewhat on a curve, but would not give C’s or higher to any student who was clearly drowning on the basics.
Most of his free time - make that all of his free time plus some - was spent dealing with students who whined that he was killing their medical or engineering or science careers. Whined every day. Every test. Every homework assignment. He would grant the student a few points and sometimes slightly raise the grade if the student could demonstrate some subject mastery in an interview with him. He gave students options to do extra elementary-level calculus work and upped their grades if they did it correctly. He gave re-test options on some tests, open to all.
He wasn’t trying to be an asshole to the students. Otoh he didn’t want to lie in his grading, or pass a student into a curriculum that student simply could not handle.
The would-be science students either were usually math-competent, or they changed majors. The pre-meds whined the most. They pointed out that his grade (this is a freshman course) was killing their chances at admission to Johns Hopkins. Uh huh.
Most of the engineering students did fine, but a few claimed he was killing their great careers. He would emphasize the tutoring and workgroups. He sometimes mentioned they consider doing some algebra and trig again and then do calculus. No go, that would slow them down so he must fix it.
He had no time to tutor them himself, his free time was filled with whiners. He didn’t have the heart to ask the obvious q: how will you get thru an engineering curriculum if you can’t pass calculus?
So when the students couldn’t get their D’s transformed magically into A’s, often the parents would call. They would emphasize that they were paying his salary. Sometimes even a grandparent would call.
Several students showed up at his house begging for attention and mercy. More than one parent sent letters to his house, demanding or pleading.
The thing that made his really angry was when a few students or their parents sent letters begging or accusing about grades to his wife’s school (she knew ASL and taught at a school for the deaf).
If you can really deal out all A’s perhaps that’s not so bad.
Are you grading Uni/college or a prep type school?f
@f00l College and no I can’t really give out all A’s (I am an adjunct which translates into major job insecurity so I need to so totally color inside the lines and at the same time try not to piss off students), but if I could it would stop the whining. Amazing how many tell you the last week of classes (which this is) or just after the class is done how they need a passing grade due to: (1) their job and tuition reimbursement and they will have to sell their car (fill in the blank) if I don’t pass them, (2) financial aid, (3) their career, (4) they only ever get A’s… Well if you needed that grade then you needed to put the work in to get it. I probably spent 20 hours a week in one grad class I both hated and had trouble with to get a B… Not to mention it had been years since I had had calculus (so I spent a lot of time in the undergrad math tutoring lab - I could set up the problems, I just had forgotten anything I ever knew about how to solve the math with calculus though) and now I had to do 2 page, single spaced proofs? Seriously? On one exam I borrowed a cartoon and started the proof, forgot how to do some of the math, knew roughly how it was supposed to end so put “a miracle happens here” and then explained, in words, where I knew it was headed and how it would end. I did get part credit though. OMG I was so glad never to have to take anything even remotely related to that class ever again.
@Kidsandliz
Math is one of those areas where, in order to be proficient, it helps not to have big gaps like decades since you last did it.
I don’t remember so much even if stuff I taught or tutored but could get it back quickly I think. Only they use somewhat diff approaches now do I would have to review just to learn what the current expectations and conversational teaching lingo are.
Once you get past calculus the subject matter stabilizes. You could prob still use a textbook from 40 years ago in those courses. I could get that back just by reading a textbook, I hope.
What was the grad math course you had to take? Trying to imagine, if you are not in sciences or engineering, and had to do one course, what course? Stat or probability?
Anyway that long story wasn’t a story about calculus. It’s was a story about the prof’s sorry lot in life. Aside from the high level tenured faculty and the academic superstars, the profs have become the latest “squeeze more productivity, pay less to them and fewer bennies too” group. A University often resembles a “Walmart of the Mind”, in employment terms, so I have heard. New hire profs and adjunct profs are the uni’s version of academic cannon fodder.
My friend was heard to mutter that he couldn’t believe he had pursued a PhD in math because of truth and beauty and dedication and inspiration in order to be a college’s “flunk course garbage dump”. He enjoyed teaching the students who worked. Even those who were at sea, if they came for help in an honest way. He was shocked at the begging and manipulation, and shocked at the entitlement run amok and shocked that those students filled every day. And this at a pretty good uni. Other profs told him to get a thick skin and become less available.
Doesn’t “adjunct professor” mean you get almost no $ and have an “abuse me” sign taped to your back at all times? And your employment stability is close to nil? And they pay you in pennies because they can?
@f00l Certainly much about math is chiseled in stone. Third semester PhD stats the guy teaching that class decided to teach it using using vectors and matrix algebra - neither of which I had ever been exposed to. Found a great 1975 textbook in the old stacks in the library. Turns out he was teaching straight from that book. No one else figured that out (kept waiting for the recall on that book). I got the highest A in that class by nearly 2 percentage points, outscoring all the PhD stats students, around 80 of us in that class. They asked me, when that class was done, if I was planning to change my PhD major. I told them “Are you out of your mind? I am so relieved not to spend a zillion hours a week on homework and learning different stats programs”. I did discover one program that you could run the stats using a menu and then request it to show you the matrix algebra. Yea on that program when it came to doing the homework that had to be done using matrix algebra. Just worked backwards that way. Saved a ton of time (of course I still had to understand how to do the math and set it up for the exams but seriously time saving to work backwards from the right answer where the math was always right because the computer did it). Joke is on me though - I have had to teach stats in my department on occasion.
Never took stats. Did take prob but did not chase it. Interests where elsewhere.
One thing has changed - lots of machine time and stuff that’s highly relevant to theoretical issues in IT and what are the presumed boundaries of the sort of knowledge that can be generated by code, given certain limits and definitions. Also a lot of stuff relevant to big data.
I never dealt with that, although I did dealt a bit with the limits of what could be articulated, and the diff limits of what could be “known”, yea or nay. Complex subject, and one of the things people find “beautiful”. I’m sure all that’s in another galaxy now from when I was messing with it.
Proving the limits of what can be expressed or created is a tricky biz. They can get that wrong. I used to love the stories about how Marvin Minsky’s Media Lab at MIT was downstairs in the basement doing by code exactly the sort of things that IT theoreticians upstairs were arguing could not be done.
I’m glad your survived your stat course. What a way to teach it. For math and physics and engineering people, sure. You want them to see the connections. But for your basic PhD candidate, that’s just a way to assume background they don’t have and to make it really hard. Like teaching stats to American students in Chinese, and saying, “Oh, by the way, this is easy if you know Chinese, so brush up on that”,
@f00l I think that 3 course stats sequence was the academic equivalent of frat hazing (not taught by my department but they sent us there on purpose - as in don’t even ask to take it in another department). The first two were taught conventionally and it was just the third semester. I was just plain lucky to find that old book - saw I typo I made- should have been 1965 textbook, not old 1975 one - dusty, I was the first one to check it out in years and years… and lucky no one thought to go hunting for pre computer stats books - which I did presuming they’d actually use this kind of math to solve the stats problems by hand back then.
Interesting what is going on in corners of universities though. At my undergrad one they were trying to measure gravity waves (sort of sad they weren’t the ones who finally successful doing it some years later but at least they were right and they exist) and we temporarily (and with permission) “swiped” several gravity wave strain gages (at several bunch of thousands of dollars each at the time - overkill to measure what we needed to measure) to measure the overtones of various rough tuned and carillon tuned tower bells for a Physics of Music senior seminar. And no, I wasn’t a physics major - that would not have been wise. I just talked my way into that class and then was in a group with engineering students who also played the carillon and pranked the campus doing interesting stunts (of which I was a tag along with those escapades). I got frustrated in Physics 101 with a lab where we were to shoot balls off a table. Mine were landing all over, so I figured out where they were supposed to land, removed all the carbon paper except from there and shot then shot them off until enough landed where they were supposed to. One should not be a STEM major if one is willing to fudge results that way LOL.
I did take a lot of science though and at one point in my life I ran a summer camp for high school science geeks at a electron beam accelerator where we did a field trip to an amusement part, made things like homemade gravity sensors to see the gravitational pull while, say, upside down on a roller coaster (and I was tasked to sit behind students and take good photos of that in action while upside down), and did physics of amusement park rides, ran a school science program there, and an outdoor school camp too - ironic. I should have taken that last class to finish a science major (that would have been biochem I did not take - OMG I hated chemistry - that is what kept me from deciding to get a PhD in human genetics - when I realized just how much chemistry you needed to take and, worse yet, actually know). But at the time I was young and dumb and didn’t.
Human genetics looks to be fascinating. Ok I know next to nothing about science -never took a science course after HS except for math, because could get away with it.
But re genetics - perhaps a little sorry you didn’t stick that out? Chemistry, like physics, like math, like code, like lit and philosophy etc, involves “learned ways of knowing”. IE it comes naturally to some people. Most others get into it, and then if they wanna stay, they, as they study, hack how to think about it and learn it and master it. Spend a significant amount of time figuring out how to think effeciently in the terms of the subject matter as well as time spend on the stuff you have to do at the moment.
And immerse immerse immerse. What they now call “deep practice” or something. And then after a while your brain is kinda zen about it. You know how to turn that mode on in yourself. Thus can take years of course, and can be refined over decades.
And then one gets better, way better. Or so I believe. One classmate of mine had to take calculus twice and he lived at the tutoring sessions. But he would not quit. He became a successful engineer - had intended to do law. He stuck with it and then got fascinated and then got good.
But you made another choice. And I bet it’s interesting.
PS. Your physics 101 stunt would have been respected by other physics students I think. How Captain Kirk got out of Starflert Academy - he “cheated” and re-coded the test.
Everyone gets stuck someplace or other. Yeah you should have worked that out, but I kinda like your “solution”.
And based on what you just did (and you know what I am referring to) I retroactively unblame you for everything you have been blamed for and absolve you from any future blame… of course I probably need a magic wand to be able to do that since you are the goat… but it is the thought that counts. Right? (Read your email)
@Kidsandliz Please tell us that your car was unscathed when you went to it this morning. Please also let us know how you’re feeling. We can’t send meds electronically (yet), but we would if we could.
@OldCatLady Haven’t been to the car yet… Stuff still hurts but that is to be expected. I’ll survive I was just feeling sorry for myself yesterday and since meh didn’t sell violins yesterday I had to whine LOL. Thanks for asking. Headed out to the car shortly. We usually have a car break in about every other week or so… Since mine is not even close to the nicest in the parking lot I am hoping they head to the nice cars first. They likely don’t realize this is hud housing and they’d get better pickings in the hospital parking lots a half a block away. Of course those parking lots have cameras and we don’t…
Today should be otherwise a good day though. A group of women chose my daughter and her little kids to be their “angel tree” (each year apparently they approach one of the angel tree organizers and have them pick out a family with multiple kids on that particular organization’s tree and my daughter and her 3 were picked!! No idea how they pick I am just thankful I had chased down how to get them on a tree, any tree, and then they were picked). They are having the party to give them the gifts in a couple of hours (most will go under the tree but they get to open a couple at the party). Hope there are a lot of diapers under that tree LOL
@Kidsandliz Yay for angel trees. I’m a big supporter, and it’s a lot more fun to shop for kids than adults. Adults need gifts too, but- . I like the party idea. You’re a good, organized grandmother who helps make sure their needs are met, and I congratulate you. It’s hard to wrap diapers, unless you get the enormous gift bags from Dollar Tree or such.
Stop unblaming me. This instant. You have no idea how much blame I deserve. Think big. Ok. Now think bigger. Now just keep doing that. I’ll let you know when to stop.
And I will be highly po’ed if I don’t get some from you.
Apologizes @f00l for excessive unblame. @f00l deserves all blame.
@OldCatLady Car was unscathed. Perhaps too cold for the regulars to hang out here last night. Since the so called security guard here never leaves the building (I also have a couple of photos of him sleeping on the job too - as in on the couch) and this street is commercial no one runs off the vagrants and dumpster pickers. They dig in our dumpster and at the subway (sandwich store not public transportation) dumpster (and my parking spot is 2 spots way from the subway dumpster on “our side” of it). Usually I am careful about making sure nothing is in the car. I just forgot yesterday. And I got lucky. : )
By the way the party was a great success. The kids opened these trucks that made a heck of a lot of noise, flashing lights, etc. and they were in seventh heaven. They spent all their time playing with them (most of the stuff is going to be opened on christmas). Made me tear up at how nice these women were and just how much they bought - clothes, toys… I don’t even know what all since most of it was not opened at the party. It was lovely and they were so sweet. They were mostly in their 70’s and 80’s and played “pass the baby” with the 5 month old. The boys (2 and 3 ) were shy at first but once they opened the trucks they had a blast and warmed up to everyone. It was really nice.
I believe the Meh Powers gave permission in the past for this link to appear in the forums. Hope that still holds.
I know Bill Gates and Warren Buffett prob don’t hang here. I know everyone’s poor or worried about being poor. I know we all have commitments and causes of our own.
But if anyone wants to check out that link - there are prob worse ways to spend one’s time.
@f00l Nope. What I really need to do is to update to W10. It plays a lot nicer, even on my older and crappier 635 (with 512 mb ram). Hell, it can even load profile pages here!
(My cost-a-catshirt Moto E2 crashes at the idea of it. And I doubt it’d ever get the Marshmallow update here in the US, even though Motorola/Lenovo has updated it in India.)
I just keep staring at that sentence. It mesmerizes me.
It needs to be the tag-line of some great dystopian rock song.
Ok you said it not me. And guess what! I finally did the dive and upgraded my win8 machines to Win10 so guilty guilty guilty of being a @f00l.
My vista! machines! and - get this - my 2 win2k!!! machines!!! can sit in the closet until I get around to pulling the media and personal stuff off them.
But ha ha ha to MS cause I mostly use my phones (yes, plural, fuck it) and my chrome book which I should put Linux on but have not bothered. Google who already knows every fucking detail about me gets to keep on knowing.
Let’s see. Now who’s the mark in this setup? Hmmmm.
It’s time to switch it up, I mean
You can’t get stuck on the iamb scene
It takes too much attention
Time for an intervention-
Now be sensible,
No rhyme scheme is indispensable-
Mehsters, change out your voices
You keep out of trouble and you double your choices.
Now don’t get all fraught
Cause you are not throwing away your shot.
@f00l we are still waiting for your sonnet
when can we expect you to get on it?
We’ve all been wasting away
It’s been well over a day
Are you going to write one? Doggone it!
There appeared once a great @f00l from Texas
Who was tasked with a sonnet infectious
To @f00l’s enormous shame
The iambic did aim
And pentametered @f00l in the plexus!
If evasiveness causes great nausea
Does that mean @jbartus will pause, yeah?
Will he stop to be sick
And then upload the pic?
Because that seems a most worthy cause, ya!
@f00l to this I say nyet
And await the sonnet you’ll beget.
I suspect you’re quite the poet
Though you obviously don’t know it
And so I will continue to abet.
@f00l (cc: @PlacidPenguin) I just saw your pings. I blame you that I will not even open the Random and Useless thread because of load times. That thread scares the shit out of me! So yes, I am into putting to sleep and starting another if this is what people would like.
A blame for @f00l for forgetting to post a Wednesday kitty in the cat thread, but catshirtswoot has a SW catshirt today, so have a double unblame instead. http://shirt.woot.com/offers/roar-one
@narfcake
Like catshirts. Dogshirts. And poetryshirts. And fan-shirts (SW etc) and science and lit-shirts. And IT/logic shirts. And culture-shirts. And funny/ironic/sarcastic-punny shirts. But own some of all.
But am seeking a @f00l-shirt. For a @f00l. (Variable spelling of @f00l is ok.)
@f00l I always park in the neighborhood across the street (E of Montgomery) when we go to FWMSaH, then walk over. Older homes, small or no garages - lots of on-street parking available.
$$ saved can be spent @ DQ
@f00l Might be more complicated (and crowded) during Stock Show, but it hasn’t been that long since we did it. Locals would have be given permits (like Chicago around Wrigley) and violations would have to be enforced. Complicated, costly, more losers than winners.
Just don’t block anybody’s driveway
The stock show involved horse trailers so there were special rules and special parking and shuttles to off-site and all that. And you had to be there 3-6 hours early and since in Jan or Feb was usually really really cold and you had to be in your club outfit so coats were problematic unless you had someone to hand them to.
@jbartus You sound like my cousins in NW Ohio. I get no sympathy when I call to complain. ‘Oh, shut up!’ is what I get. Then they threaten to come visit.
@OldCatLady That is where I grew up. Snow shovel in one hand and Franklin’s ice cream cone in the other… Do not miss snow shoveling. Do miss skiing and sledding. Do not miss no sunshine. Do miss beautiful autumns.
@f00l@compunaut exactly. For 12 packs it’s on the flap you pull off to dispense the cans. On 20 oz, 1L and 2L bottles, the code is under the cap. On 12-packs it’s inside the flap/door thingy you rip off to dispense cans. On shrink-wrapped cases it’s inside the shrink wrap on the bottom of the box.
For 12 packs it’s on the flap you pull off to dispense the cans. On 20 oz, 1L and 2L bottles, the code is under the cap. On 12-packs it’s inside the flap/door thingy you rip off to dispense cans. On shrink-wrapped cases it’s inside the shrink wrap on the bottom of the box.
Blame: In getting the new dual port wall recharger, I pretty much depleted the spare Amazon account of funds being saved to get Meh a nice gift (by Amazon standards)…
Also @f00l was your fault, I sincerely thought you’d meant to nominate but were unclear about it. I blame @f00l for the fact that I cannot blame you for posting a nonsense post that got @f00l elected scapegoat!
Had to buy 3 somethings for people. Horrible time keeping items in cart. Eventually I cheated and used 1 click ordering. Will fix gift card balance eventually.
Although I suppose that’s what happens when the holidays collide.
Here’s another poem, about something that happened on a cold day.
The last part is written like an anthem: if you wanna skip the rest:
TL;DRthe anthemic part is italicized to make it easy to spot. Warning, it’s a poem.
In Memory of W. B. Yeats
By W. H. Auden, 1907 - 1973
Written in 1939?
Published 1940 Another Time (London, New York 1940; poetry) (dedicated to Chester Kallman).
(Auden was born in England. He came to the US in 1939 with Christopher Isherwood, lifelong friend and sometime intimate; they had already decided to move to the US several years before. After war started, Auden, who had been a conscientious objector, offered to join first the British and later the American military - he was rejected for both on medical grounds. He had assisted a few people in getting out of Germany in the 1930’s, and in 1939 the looming war was no doubt much on his mind.
William Butler Yeats died on Jan 28, 1939. Auden started working in this poem almost immediately.)
I
He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.
Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.
But in the importance and noise of to-morrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the
Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly
accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his
freedom,
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
II
You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.
III
Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.
Time that is intolerant
Of the brave and innocent,
And indifferent in a week
To a beautiful physique,
Worships language and forgives
Everyone by whom it lives,
Pardons cowardice, conceit,
Lays its honors at their feet.
Time that with this strange excuse
Pardoned Kipling and his views,
And will pardon Paul Claudel,
Pardons him for writing well.
In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;
Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse, Sing of human unsuccess In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise.
Blame: In the past week, I haven’t found any good shirts in thrift stores. The mutant Anvils do not count; I said good.
Unblame: I’ve been eyeing a stud welder so I can pull the dents out of the side of my truck. Normally on sale, it’s around $100. Marked down in the AS-IS section at my local store, $70. Manager has a 50% off sign out? Kick ass! You’re a great scapegoat, @f00l! Have 60 unblames!
(I’ve tested it out on a piece of scrap metal already; it works.)
@thumperchick You cheated again and locked the no last one to post here is the winner NO moderator zone thread right after @f00l’s post so @f00l would win! And for that I blame @f00l@shawn you need to unlock that threat please.
@Kidsandliz The original thread creator asked me to lock it. I simply clicked the link from my email, hit the home button to take me to the top of the thread and hit lock. Didn’t even see who won until after the lock. Calling me a cheater is just rude. Don’t be a sore loser.
@Thumperchick You didn’t post all that at the bottom of the thread. You locked it the same number of minutes ago as the final post… from the outside it would looked rigged…especially since you had played that joke on the first thread of locking right after posting and the top of the new thread whomever started it called you a cheater for locking it (that was what I was referring to). Not being a sore loser - left to its own devices there never would have been a loser…or a winner… we all knew that.
@f00l I just noticed at the top of the locked thread is that you are supposed to be starting the new one to pick up where that one left off… so enjoy your winning while you can : )
@f00l had never heard of The Librarians @f00l did not mean to side with contrarians.
But now in a pinch, @f00l’s sure it’s a cinch
And will struggle against all barbarians.
I blame you for the fact that I still haven’t found a satisfactory birthday present for @Barney.
I mean I found stuff, but the ratio of purple to non-purple isn’t good enough. The stuff I found have too much non-purple.
Which reminds me… @Barney - Did you hear that they’re making a reboot of Barney and friends?
@f00l seeks purple for those birthdays
That @Barney combines with holidays @f00l is searching so hard
For pure purple unmarred
Red and green might as well be mere grays.
@f00l As @PlacidPenguin said, CyanogenMod is shifting to the new name Lineage and re-tooling itself.
Old nightlies should still be available now, but eventually they’ll disappear when the hosting does.
Then came my S3 and I had no choice but to ROM (or at the very least, root).
When I had my Nexus 5, I only reluctant rooted, although near the end, a great app came out which allowed me to keep Systemless Root, but flash the monthly security patches.
Now, I’m holding back. Less reason for me to root now, especially because one of my biggest reasons to root has sort of been incorporated into Android.
Although I’m still a supporter of the rooting community.
@PlacidPenguin
What was the reason to root that got incorporated?
Should I go ahead and put Nougat on my Nexus 6 or just wait? The last update got me to 6.01 something and google play stopped crashing. So it’s fine to use.
Don’t wanna wipe and have to reinstall stuff though. Want it as upgrade.
Well everyone who roots has a different of reasons to do so.
As I thought, the Nexus 6 has yet to get 7.1.1, though it did get 7.0.
Why would you have to wipe stuff? Generally after an OTA, you don’t have to wipe, although some people suggest it to remove possible side effects.
Haven’t seen reports on how Nougat is treating the phone post update though.
Funny story unrelated to your questions: The build date of the final dev preview for 7.1.1 has a later build date than the stable 7.1.1 build. So, any attempt to update from dev preview to stable would fail. I had to wait until they issued a new stable version so that I could update from dev preview to stable without either erasing my phone, or waiting until January.
PS. I saw. It’s up to you in the end. After all, you’re an independent person who has the ability to think and to act on his own thoughts.
Do I have to have rooted the Nexus first to get nougat early?
I did root some of my Samsung phones back when google fucked up micro Sd card access. Never put an alt rom on one tho. Stopped buying Samsung phones when they made themselves inferior to Nexus.
My uprooted Nexus 6 shows up to date on updates. Any idea when Google starts pushing out to everyone? Is this phone a bitch to root, or easy?
I suppose you could use a PC and flash the OTA (as long as you use the OTA, you wouldn’t lose anything), or you could sign up for the beta and see where that gets you.
As a rule, Nexus devices are easy to root.
I mean, there are some programs which would do it for you, but I prefer to do it manually. Although then you’d lose everything. Well, technically, you’d lose everything upon unlocking bootloader.
Heart’s Needle
Published 1959
W. D. Snodgrass, 1926 - 2009
For Cynthia
When Suibhe would not return to fine garments and good food, to his houses and his people, Loingseachan told him, “Your father is dead.” “I’m sorry to hear it,” he said. “Your mother is dead,” said the lad. “All pity for me has gone out of the world.” “Your sister, too, is dead.” “The mild sun rests on every ditch,” he said; “a sister loves even though not loved.” “Suibhne, your daughter is dead.” “And an only daughter is the needle of the heart.” “And Suibhne, your little boy, who used to call you ‘Daddy’ he is dead.” “Aye,” said Suibhne, "that’s the drop that brings a man to the ground."
He fell out of the yew tree; Loingseachan closed his arms around him and placed him in manacles.
—after The Middle-Irish Romance
The Madness of Suibhne
Late April and you are three; today
We dug your garden in the yard.
To curb the damage of your play,
Strange dogs at night and the moles tunneling,
Four slender sticks of lath stand guard
Uplifting their thin string.
So you were the first to tramp it down.
And after the earth was sifted close
You brought your watering can to drown
All earth and us. But these mixed seeds are pressed
With light loam in their steadfast rows.
Child, we’ve done our best.
Someone will have to weed and spread
The young sprouts. Sprinkle them in the hour
When shadow falls across their bed.
You should try to look at them every day
Because when they come to full flower
I will be away.
The child between them on the street
Comes to a puddle, lifts his feet
And hangs on their hands. They start
At the Jive weight and lurch together,
Recoil to swing him through the weather,
Stiffen and pull apart.
We read of cold war soldiers that
Never gained ground, gave none, but sat
Tight in their chill trenches.
Pain seeps up from some cavity
Through the ranked teeth in sympathy;
The whole jaw grinds and clenches
Till something somewhere has to give.
It’s better the poor soldiers live
In someone else’s hands
Than drop where helpless powers fall
On crops and barns, on towns where all
Will burn. And no man stands.
For good, they sever and divide
Their won and lost land. On each side
Prisoners are returned
Excepting a few unknown names.
The peasant plods back and reclaims
His fields that strangers burned
And nobody seems very pleased.
It’s best. Still, what must not be seized
Clenches the empty fist.
I tugged your hand, once, when I hated
Things less: a mere game dislocated
The radius of your wrist.
Love’s wishbone, child, although I’ve gone
As men must and let you be drawn
Off to appease another,
It may help that a Chinese play
Or Solomon himself might say
I am your real mother.
Easter has come around
again; the river is rising
over the thawed ground
and the banksides. When you come you bring
an egg dyed lavender.
We shout along our bank to hear
our voices returning from the hills to meet us.
We need the landscape to repeat us.
You lived on this bank first.
While nine months filled your term, we knew
how your lungs, immersed
in the womb, miraculously grew
their useless folds till
the fierce, cold air rushed in to fill
them out like bushes thick with leaves. You took your hour,
caught breath, and cried with your full lung power.
Over the stagnant bight
we see the hungry bank swallow
flaunting his free flight
still; we sink in mud to follow
the killdeer from the grass
that hides her nest. That March there was
rain; the rivers rose; you could hear killdeers flying
all night over the mudflats crying.
You bring back how the red-
winged blackbird shrieked, slapping frail wings,
diving at my head—
I saw where her tough nest, cradled, swings
in tall reeds that must sway
with the winds blowing every way.
If you recall much, you recall this place. You still
live nearby—on the opposite hill.
After the sharp windstorm
of July Fourth, all that summer
through the gentle, warm
afternoons, we heard great chain saws chirr
like iron locusts. Crews
of roughneck boys swarmed to cut loose
branches wrenched in the shattering wind, to hack free
all the torn limbs that could sap the tree.
In the debris lay
starlings, dead. Near the park’s birdrun
we surprised one day
a proud, tan-spatted, buff-brown pigeon.
In my hands she flapped so
fearfully that I let her go.
Her keeper came. And we helped snarl her in a net.
You bring things I’d as soon forget.
You raise into my head
a Fall night that I came once more
to sit on your bed;
sweat beads stood out on your arms and fore-
head and you wheezed for breath,
for help, like some child caught beneath
its comfortable wooly blankets, drowning there.
Your lungs caught and would not take the air.
Of all things, only we
have power to choose that we should die;
nothing else is free
in this world to refuse it. Yet I,
who say this, could not raise
myself from bed how many days
to the thieving world. Child, I have another wife,
another child. We try to choose our life.
Here in the scuffled dust
is our ground of play.
I lift you on your swing and must
shove you away,
see you return again,
drive you off again, then
stand quiet till you come.
You, though you climb
higher, farther from me, longer,
will fall back to me stronger.
Bad penny, pendulum,
you keep my constant time
to bob in blue July
where fat goldfinches fly
over the glittering, fecund
reach of our growing lands.
Once more now, this second,
I hold you in my hands.
I thumped on you the best I could
which was no use;
you would not tolerate your food
until the sweet, fresh milk was soured
with lemon juice.
That puffed you up like a fine yeast.
The first June in your yard
like some squat Nero at a feast
you sat and chewed on white, sweet clover.
That is over.
When you were old enough to walk
we went to feed
the rabbits in the park milkweed;
saw the paired monkeys, under lock,
consume each other’s salt.
Going home we watched the slow
stars follow us down Heaven’s vault.
You said, let’s catch one that comes low,
pull off its skin
and cook it for our dinner.
As absentee bread-winner,
I seldom got you such cuisine;
we ate in local restaurants
or bought what lunches we could pack
in a brown sack
with stale, dry bread to toss for ducks
on the green-scummed lagoons,
crackers for porcupine and fox,
life-savers for the footpad coons
to scour and rinse,
snatch after in their muddy pail
and stare into their paws.
When I moved next door to the jail
I learned to fry
omelettes and griddle cakes so I
could set you supper at my table.
As I built back from helplessness,
when I grew able,
the only possible answer was
you had to come here less.
This Hallowe’en you come one week.
You masquerade
as a vermilion, sleek,
fat, crosseyed fox in the parade
or, where grim jackolanterns leer,
go with your bag from door to door
foraging for treats. How queer:
when you take off your mask
my neighbors must forget and ask
whose child you are.
Of course you lose your appetite,
whine and won’t touch your plate;
as local law
I set your place on an orange crate
in your own room for days. At night
you lie asleep there on the bed
and grate your jaw.
Assuredly your father’s crimes
are visited
on you. You visit me sometimes.
The time’s up. Now our pumpkin sees
me bringing your suitcase.
He holds his grin;
the forehead shrivels, sinking in.
You break this year’s first crust of snow
off the runningboard to eat.
We manage, though for days
I crave sweets when you leave and know
they rot my teeth. Indeed our sweet
foods leave us cavities.
I get numb and go in
though the dry ground will not hold
the few dry swirls of snow
and it must not be very cold.
A friend asks how you’ve been
and I don’t know
or see much right to ask.
Or what use it could be to know.
In three months since you came
the leaves have fallen and the snow;
your pictures pinned above my desk
seem much the same.
Somehow I come to find
myself upstairs in the third floor
museum’s halls,
walking to kill my time once more
among the enduring and resigned
stuffed animals,
where, through a century’s
caprice, displacement and
known treachery between
its wars, they hear some old command
and in their peaceable kingdoms freeze
to this still scene,
Nature Morte. Here
by the door, its guardian,
the patchwork dodo stands
where you and your stepsister ran
laughing and pointing. Here, last year,
you pulled my hands
and had your first, worst quarrel,
so toys were put up on your shelves.
Here in the first glass cage
the little bobcats arch themselves,
still practicing their snarl
of constant rage.
The bison, here, immense,
shoves at his calf, brow to brow,
and looks it in the eye
to see what is it thinking now.
I forced you to obedience;
I don’t know why.
Still the lean lioness
beyond them, on her jutting ledge
of shale and desert shrub,
stands watching always at the edge,
stands hard and tanned and envious
above her cub;
with horns locked in tan heather,
two great Olympian Elk stand bound,
fixed in their lasting hate
till hunger brings them both to ground.
Whom equal weakness binds together
none shall separate.
Yet separate in the ocean
of broken ice, the white bear reels
beyond the leathery groups
of scattered, drab Arctic seals
arrested here in violent motion
like Napoleon’s troops.
Our states have stood so long
At war, shaken with hate and dread,
they are paralyzed at bay;
once we were out of reach, we said,
we would grow reasonable and strong.
Some other day.
Like the cold men of Rome,
we have won costly fields to sow
in salt, our only seed.
Nothing but injury will grow.
I write you only the bitter poems
that you can’t read.
Onan who would not breed
a child to take his brother’s bread
and be his brother’s birth,
rose up and left his lawful bed,
went out and spilled his seed
in the cold earth.
I stand by the unborn,
by putty-colored children curled
in jars of alcohol,
that waken to no other world,
unchanging, where no eye shall mourn.
I see the caul
that wrapped a kitten, dead.
I see the branching, doubled throat
of a two-headed foal;
I see the hydrocephalic goat;
here is the curled and swollen head,
there, the burst skull;
skin of a limbless calf;
a horse’s foetus, mummified;
mounted and joined forever,
the Siamese twin dogs that ride
belly to belly, half and half,
that none shall sever.
I walk among the growths,
by gangrenous tissue, goiter, cysts,
by fistulas and cancers,
where the malignancy man loathes
is held suspended and persists.
And I don’t know the answers.
The window’s turning white.
The world moves like a diseased heart
packed with ice and snow.
Three months now we have been apart
less than a mile. I cannot fight
or let you go.
@f00l Thanks for posting that. It’s a visitation from a ghost of Christmas past. W.D. Snodgrass was Visiting Poet at Old Dominion University in 1978. He spoke to several writing classes and held readings. http://www.lib.odu.edu/litfest/poetryjam/index.html
I don’t know Dave Smith. I remember reading Richard Wilbur. Now I’ll have to go re-read.
I wish I still had my fav anthology. It vanished and I can’t remember the name of it. Just that the hardback cover was purple.
It was the right size book to dip into. Not so big you keep putting it off. Just enough that there’s always the right number of poems you have looked at yet.
Barely go to Goodreads. In part because of the asshole author/reader flake was s of f the past. And now mostly because the commentary doesn’t come close to what you can find on Amazon and elsewhere.
Perhaps in specialized areas that don’t attract the “Team Cute Fantasy Guy” readers, it gets better. (Nothing against those readers, just don’t usually wanna take time to see what they have to say.).
@f00l is no doubt to
Blame. Amazon’s digital
Media sales.
Today Amazon has some pretty decent NYT bestsellers in sale today, thru 11:59pm Pacific Time.
Fiction and non-fiction. Range of genres and topics. Since Amazon does. Not allow third party site-scraping of Kindle pricing, I can’t tell you what the prices of these books were yesterday. However, the sales prices of Daily Deals books seem to usually be pretty good.
Some of the 30+ titles on sale today:
The Color Purple (Alice Walker)
The Accidental Tourist (Ann Tyler)
A Night To Remember (Walter Lord)
Spam Nation (Brian Krebs)
Business Adventures (John Brooks)
Tribe (Sebastian Junger)
The Fifties (David Halberstam)
Why Not Me? (Mindy Khaling)
Gone to Soldiers (Marge Piercy)
The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright–
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.
The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done–
“It’s very rude of him,” she said,
“To come and spoil the fun!”
The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying overhead–
There were no birds to fly.
The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
"If this were only cleared away,"
They said, “it would be grand!”
“If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose,” the Walrus said,
“That they could get it clear?”
“I doubt it,” said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.
"O Oysters, come and walk with us!"
The Walrus did beseech.
“A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each.”
The eldest Oyster looked at him,
But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head–
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.
But four young Oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat–
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn’t any feet.
Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more–
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore.
The Walrus and the Carpenter
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood
And waited in a row.
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”
“But wait a bit,” the Oysters cried,
“Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!”
“No hurry!” said the Carpenter.
They thanked him much for that.
“A loaf of bread,” the Walrus said,
“Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed–
Now if you’re ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed.”
“But not on us!” the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue.
“After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!”
“The night is fine,” the Walrus said.
"Do you admire the view?
"It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!“
The Carpenter said nothing but
"Cut us another slice:
I wish you were not quite so deaf–
I’ve had to ask you twice!”
“It seems a shame,” the Walrus said,
"To play them such a trick,
After we’ve brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!“
The Carpenter said nothing but
"The butter’s spread too thick!”
“I weep for you,” the Walrus said:
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.
“O Oysters,” said the Carpenter,
"You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none–
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d eaten every one.
Sniglets and Slithy Toves
The Atlantic’s “Ms. Grammar”
(aka Barbara Wallraff) talks about wordplay, recreational word coining, and her new book, Word Fugitives.
A “burn” poem directed by the young T. S. Eliot against his critics, and his female critics in particular. Unpublished during his lifetime, it first appeared in the posthumous volume Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909-1917 (1997). According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the title contains the first recorded instance of the word “bullshit” (though the term had probably been floating around in popular slang for a while before that). The second, third, and fourth recorded instances, by the way, belong to Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis, and E. E. Cummings. Next time you call something bullshit, you can congratulate yourself on your sophisticated literary putdown.
According to some source somewhere that I now can’t find, the poem is believed to have been written sometime between 1910 and 1917.
The Triumph of Bullshit
T.S. Eliot
Ladies, on whom my attentions have waited
If you consider my merits are small
Etiolated, alembicated,
Orotund, tasteless, fantastical,
Monotonous, crotchety, constipated,
Impotent galamatias
Affected, possibly imitated,
For Christ’s sake stick it up your ass.
Ladies, who find my intentions ridiculous
Awkward, insipid and horribly gauche
Pompous, pretentious, ineptly meticulous
Dull as the heart of an unbaked brioche
Floundering versicles freely versiculous
Often attenuate, frequently crass
Attempts at emotion that turn isiculous,
For Christ’s sake stick it up your ass.
Ladies who think me unduly vociferous
Amiable cabotin making a noise
That people may cry out “this stuff is too stiff for us”-
Ingenuous child with a box of new toys
Toy lions carnivorous, cannon fumiferous
Engines vaporous- all this will pass;
Quite innocent, -"he only wants to make shiver us."
For Christ’s sake stick it up your ass.
And when thyself with silver foot shall pass
Among the theories scattered on the grass
Take up my good intentions with the rest
And then for Christ’s sake stick them up your ass.
“Do not go gentle into that good night” is a poem in the form of a villanelle, and the most famous work of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914–1953).[1] Though first published in the journal Botteghe Oscure in 1951,[2] it was actually written in 1947 when he was in Florence with his family. It was published, along with other stories previously written, as part of his In Country Sleep, And Other Poems in 1952.[1]
It has been suggested that it was written for Thomas’ dying father, although he did not die until just before Christmas 1952.[3] It has no title other than its first line, “Do not go gentle into that good night”, a line which appears as a refrain throughout. Its other refrain is “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”.
Dylan Thomas died in the year after his father’s death, during 1953 at age 39.
Do not go gentle into that good night Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953
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.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Today’s Google Doodle is in honor of the 250th birthday of Scottish Chemist Charles Macintosh. He invented the first commercial waterproof fabric, and the raincoat is named after him.
I blame you that I just discovered in another thread when you do (c ) without a space it comes up as copyright . Hey @shawn what gives with that and what is the work around besides putting in a space?
@PlacidPenguin would watch a series called Blackout, or at the very least, give it a try.
Provided it involves putting contestants in a house, and after a couple of weeks, killing the power. Meanwhile, they’d have to deal with @mfladd and @KittySprinkles roaming the house. Still undecided if the contestants should know about @mfladd and @KittySprinkles roaming the house. Also, not sure if we should put other mehmbers in the house also.
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) was a lifelong lawyer and insurance executive, and one of America’s best poets.
It is said that the residents of Hartford, CT learned never to speak to him or to acknowledge or disturb him on his many long walks, or even when he walked to and from work. They came to know that he did his poetic composing in his head as he walked.
After he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1955, he was offered a faculty position in literature at Harvard. He declined, as he was also dedicated to being VP of his insurance company and had no wish to resign.
The Emperor of Ice-Cream By Wallace Stevens Published 1922
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month’s newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird By Wallace Stevens Published 1917
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
a sort of cultural history of plants and drinks is the New Year’s Eve Audible Daily Deal
The Drunken Botanist
by Amy Stewart
Narrated by Coleen Marlo
10 hrs and 16 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
$3.95
PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY
Every great drink starts with a plant. Sake began with a grain of rice. Scotch emerged from barley. Gin was born from a conifer shrub when medieval physicians boiled juniper berries with wine to treat stomach pain. The Drunken Botanist uncovers the surprising botanical history and fascinating science and chemistry of over 150 plants, flowers, trees, and fruits (and even a few fungi).
Some of the most extraordinary and obscure plants have been fermented and distilled, and they each represent a unique cultural contribution to global drinking traditions and our history. Molasses was an essential ingredient of American independence when outrage over a mandate to buy British rather than French molasses for New World rum-making helped kindle the American Revolution. Captain James Cook harvested the young, green tips of spruce trees to make a vitamin C-rich beer that cured his crew of scurvy - a recipe that Jane Austen enjoyed so much that she used it as a plot point in Emma.
With over 50 drink recipes, growing tips for gardeners, and advice that carries Stewart’s trademark wit, this is the perfect listen for gardeners and cocktail aficionados alike.
Some writers’ lives are as famous/notorious as their works, or more so, esp while living or shortly after their deaths. Wilde, Hemingway, Kerouac, Fitzgerald, Mailer all went thru periods where their works were viewed in the contexts of their biographicies. Mailed joked, accurately, that any review of his books would begin with a bio, and the book review would likely be at the end of the article.
And there’s Sylvia Plath.
Some of the poetry carries the risk of not being good reading for someone at current risk of clinical depression; other poems do not - if they can be seen apart from her life and death.
If I read her poetry shortly after some sort of biographical encounter, I tend to read it as a puzzle clue to her state of mind. If I read her poems at a good remove from the memoirs and bios, the poems stand more clearly apart from her life, on their own.
And again: none of the bios and memoirs are good reading for someone who is currently clinically depressed or currently at risk.
The items mentioned below are all biographical.
She wrote her own semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, beautifully written and well-reviewed, a sharp portrait of an educated young woman’s life and prospects in the 1950’s.
It was filmed in the 1970’s - I read that the film seems to be only available on DVDs that appear to have been made by transfer from a VHS tape, and looks awful. I’ve never seen it.
And it’s reportedly being filmed again, with Dakota Fanning.
An Amazon search for Sylvia Plath as a topic in the subcategory of Bios and Memoirs brings up hundreds of hits. There are standard bios and memoirs and:
about her life before marriage;
about her married years with the poet Ted Hughes;
books about her life after separating from him;
about being one of her readers;
And more.
And these don’t seem to include the writer A Alvarez’s famous memorial essay about his friendship with her, included in his book The Savage God - again, not a book to read if one is clinically depressed.
Her unabridged journals have been published, except for the last one - which Ted Hughes destroyed, reportedly to keep their young children from reading her own version of the final and terrible depressive descent.
And there’s a movie, from a decade ago, Sylvia, starring Gwyneth Paltrow. I never saw it. There is a physical resemblance, but I never thought I could dive into the illusion “Gwyneth” would ever be “Sylvia” for an hour or two. I might have given it a shot, with another actress. Or not.
Sylvia herself comes into such sharp focus in her best poems that perhaps no actress could “be her” for me.
Who else could be believed as the creator of these poems but the poet herself?
The wet dawn inks are doing their blue dissolve.
On their blotter of fog the trees
Seem a botanical drawing.
Memories growing, ring on ring,
A series of weddings.
Knowing neither abortions nor bitchery,
Truer than women,
They seed so effortlessly!
Tasting the winds, that are footless,
Waist-deep in history.
Full of wings, otherworldliness.
In this, they are Ledas.
O mother of leaves and sweetness
Who are these pietas?
The shadows of ringdoves chanting, but chasing nothing.
@f00l It isn’t more chores than free time (it is a forgone conclusion there will be little to no free time as mom needs a lot of help - it is more chores than time at all, which is also why I am on the internet far less as there are few moments to steal and no internet in her apartment (have to go to the lobby…
hum… I wonder if it is possible to sneak a repeater in or (whatever they are called) to amplify the signal in the 4th floor lobby so that it goes all the way down the hall and not just half way down the hall. If she lived in a apt closer to the lobby there would be internet in there. Not sure if you have to hard wire them with an ethernet cable or if they just pick up signals and rebroadcast them. I’d have to place it hidden in the lobby since I presume you’d have to plug them into an outlet.
Repeaters can be a PITA to set up, depending. And someone could just walk off with it.
Is wi-fi supposed to be available where she lives? It so then you can complain about it and try to get building mgmt to deal with the prob.
You might be able to buy a really good router than can be setup as a repeater and put it in her place. You might have to replace the antennas on the router with specialized antennas that can bring in more signal.
Did this a decade ago with a netgear. have to get a router with removeable antenna or one than can take additional antennas.
This might make a good topic on its own. Pls create one. There are some serious geeks hanging out here who prob know this stuff cold.
So you know how I’m disconnected from the internet on Saturdays? I would have considered today’s item, but it was sold out before I reconnected to the internet.
Had to go somewhere yesterday afternoon. Windshield wipers got most of the snow from the front. A patch though remained on the front. Then I was foolish and used wiper fluid.
Friends party was supposed to start at 8 meaning be there 9. She texts us that maintenance issues party can’t start till 9 which means show up at a 10 or later. I am an old foggy who layed back down and now sm having trouble deciding to get dressed up and makeup and drive into city . It is too late to start a night out for me.
“Why do I love” You, Sir?
Because—
The Wind does not require the Grass
To answer—Wherefore when He pass
She cannot keep Her place.
Because He knows—and
Do not You—
And We know not—
Enough for Us
The Wisdom it be so—
The Lightning—never asked an Eye
Wherefore it shut—when He was by—
Because He knows it cannot speak—
And reasons not contained—
—Of Talk—
There be—preferred by Daintier Folk—
The Sunrise—Sire—compelleth Me—
Because He’s Sunrise—and I see—
Therefore—Then—
I love Thee—
I was in Berlin, in winter. The light
had no light, the sky had no heaven.
The air was white like wet bread.
And from my window a vacant arena,
bitten by the teeth of winter.
Suddenly driven out by a man,
ten horses surged through the mist.
Like waves of fire, they flared forward
and to my eyes filled the whole world,
empty till then. Perfect, ablaze,
they were like ten gods with pure white hoofs,
with manes like a dream of salt.
Their rumps were worlds and oranges.
Their color was honey, amber, fire.
Their necks were towers
cut from the stone of pride,
and behind their transparent eyes
energy raged, like a prisoner.
There, in silence, at mid-day,
in that dirty, disordered winter,
those intense horses were the blood
the rhythm, the inciting treasure of life.
I looked. I looked and was reborn:
for there, unknowing, was the fountain,
the dance of gold, heaven
and the fire that lives in beauty.
They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.
The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.
A toad the power mower caught,
Chewed and clipped of a leg, with a hobbling hop has got
To the garden verge, and sanctuaried him
Under the cineraria leaves, in the shade
Of the ashen and heartshaped leaves, in a dim,
Low, and a final glade.
The rare original heartsblood goes,
Spends in the earthen hide, in the folds and wizenings, flows
In the gutters of the banked and staring eyes. He lies
As still as if he would return to stone,
And soundlessly attending, dies
Toward some deep monotone,
Toward misted and ebullient seas
And cooling shores, toward lost Amphibia’s emperies.
Day dwindles, drowning and at length is gone
In the wide and antique eyes, which still appear
To watch, across the castrate lawn,
The haggard daylight steer.
Last night, I planned on blaming @f00l a lot for what I wouldn’t find today in thrift stores.
That won’t be happening.
9 Woot shirts, 8 of them AA, 3 of which are catshirts. I passed on 6, still.
5 TeeTurtle shirts. It’s been rather disproportionate here in the land of t-shirt weather that I’ve ran across so few secondhand despite having sold well over a million. 4-1/2+ years, and my count was only at 8. Granted, all were women’s sizes, so of course they were in the kids section. The blanks they use are smaller than women’s AA sizing.
New soft-closing toilet seats for $10 (versus about $30). USA made, even.
$30-ish single serve HB coffee maker for $3. Lightly used, I’ll run some vinegar through it first. If it’s crap, I can return it anyway.
My BOC arrived. I’m not opening it yet; any impending disappointment will be in next month.
AndI still blame you even though technically you are blameless as it is the first that I ordered 4 more humidifier filters for mom yesterday and finally found the “lost” ones she had put in a “safe” place. And now it is too late to cancel the order.
I wanted to find a graceful or clever way to out myself re which gender. But I can’t think of one. So I’ll be graceless and idiotic. Fall in my face. Live up to the Goat icon I still have. Nothing new, right? My speciality. My talent.
I actually referred to my gender here a while ago. Long while back I think? I forget which thread, but way back then. Some of you noticed and remembered - @OldCatLady and @Barney knew, and a few others also, or knew from other sources. And it’s come up privately with a few here. And I think I said something about it on Deals.Woot but not sure, may not have, and I wasn’t so talkative then anyway.
I’m female and have always been such. Baby boomer, so am older than I wish I were sometimes; tho aging appears to be a condition without attractive youthful escape options attached. So ya live with it, ya hope.
That social awkwardness of mine - that’s a lifelong deficit. I’ve gotten somewhat used to it, and have never figured out how to become “appropriate”. I think I lack the gift.
I didn’t mean to make a mystery or a weird game of making gender a secret, and I apologize to all. I have always been singularly graceless in social situations. Lifelong /fail.
Which gender I am came up in the thread about how I star a lot of posts, and I asked people then to let it be for a time. My reason: I had become interested it whether I could tell if assumptions of gender were visible in other people’s attitudes toward me, and if it would make much difference in behavior. And also what implicit stereotypes in my thinking would be noticeable in my remarks,assuming I could observe those in myself.
I can’t really comment on what shows up in my end of conversations. Who the hell can do a good job of observing themselves? Not me.
As for the differences I might suss about other people’s gender assumptions and attitudes toward me: the result is “just about nothing”. People just went with their defaults in the absence of info, or they assumed nothing at all. Perhaps I saw bare traces here or there for an instant. Or perhaps I imagined them.
Which is to say that the people here are a pretty great group.
You all just don’t play much by those social habits in settings where the differences, habits, and assumptions are not very relevant. And that’s just fine. Wish those attitudes were more pervasive everywhere else.
Perhaps a professional linguist, anthropologist, sociologist, or psychologist could decode more visible gender assumptions and related stereotypical behavior than I managed to notice in our chatter. Also fine. That’s what professionals and their techniques and subtleties are for. And none of us can completely wash ourselves free of this world and its ways.
I’m happy enough with the way we operate around here.
I never meant to deceive, conceal unnecessarily, be manipulative, play head games, be creepy, or violate trust. To the extent that I have done any of those, I am deeply and honestly sorry and I apologize.
And of course by typing out this long post, I’m necessarily making a sort of huge deal out of something that should be barely noticed in passing.
Again, apologies.
But I can’t help the words spilling out of my brain. All those words. Words words words. Not sick of 'em yet.
TL;dr: I’m an idiot. A female idiot.
Anyway, thanks to all of you.
Proof positive! I am a double idiot because I posted this twice!
I was about to post the thread and looks like I was a few minutes behind. @f00l should have the
badge.
@galmaegi @f00l They do. I noticed it on another thread. Let the fun commence!
@OldCatLady
Feeling uncooperative.
@f00l
Don’t forget. You have a purple birthday party this month to plan.
@PlacidPenguin
???
I am guilty of not knowing WTF you are talking about. Birthday? Whose? What?
And since I lack a memory, am unlikely to do any remembering.
Please assist.
Oh ok. I get it. I think. Ok now. Perhaps I get it. Will check.
Did you ever get back into WOOT? If so, pls pm. Got q.
@PlacidPenguin
K thx. If still confused will enquire re more info laterz. Re answer the question? Perhaps.
@f00l
Rec’d no pm at that other place.
You sent?
F zero zero L, right?
@f00l You can be a Grinch Goat. It’s your fault that I finished tossing antiquated Christmas decorations, dusted my hands, then discovered two more large bins.
@f00l
This.
@OldCatLady
I am @f00l and I approve of this blame.
I also approve of too many holiday decorations. And of too much dust.
@PlacidPenguin
No retaliations for stuff over there.
Just got a q which you can refuse to answer if you wish.
Free safe zone. Ok?
@f00l
Poke
@PlacidPenguin
Will check larerz not home yet.
@OldCatLady I thought Christmas decorations were supposed to be antiquated? I used to shop at antique stores & flea markets to find nice stuff instead of the junk typically sold at big-box stores.
I don’t buy any more cuz what I have fills up a decent tree.
@compunaut
I am @f00l and I approve of this shopping at antique stores.
@compunaut These were just 30 year old plastic wreaths and tree which shed. Plastic fir tree ‘needles’ and ‘poinsettias’ are ugly and useless. If you store plastics in 120 F heat, they disintegrate. Never should have bought them to begin with. The antique mercury glass tree ornaments, OTOH, will look good under glass, because cats.
@f00l i think you should change your username to effzerozeroelle
it would be easier to remember
@Yoda_Daenerys
@f00l does not anti-
Cipate changing @f00l’s user-
Name. Hah hah so there.
@f00l
Well neither did I (with regards to my name)…
@f00l i am feeling a little Meh,. or verklempt.
perhaps i will change my UN.
i’ll be watching y’all
@Yoda_Daenerys
Why change? I like.
If you are verklempt
@f00l is so very sad. How
Can you get better?
I also blame you for the fact that the lock button on the driver’s door in my car doesn’t work (although unlock does).
@PlacidPenguin
Sigh.
@f00l
I also blame you for the fact that I keep leaning over to the front passenger door despite the fact I could just use my key…
Take another blame for the fact that I just realized that I could manually lock it…
(The reason that it doesn’t lock when I put my car in drive is that considering cops wouldn’t necessarily find that helpful, and this was recently a cop car in Florida…)
@PlacidPenguin
Interesting. How w did you acquire?
@f00l
I know a guy.
@PlacidPenguin
I am @f00l and I approve of this blame.
Also of owning a former black-and-white.
@f00l - i unblame you because both my new watch and my new tripod arrived in the mail today. well done.
@carl669
Fuckin’ A!
@carl669
I’m learning the arts of my new title.
I am @f00l and I approve of this unblame.
@f00l I have nothing to blame you for at the moment. I managed to sneak in a blame to the previous goat before he was released from the curse.
@ELUNO
Hello to your latest true love! How many legs this time?
@f00l I don’t know… I tried going with many legs, and it didn’t work… No one thought it was cute… Maybe if I go with few/no legs… A cute snake it is!
@ELUNO Good luck with that
Don’t ever fall asleep…
@compunaut But snakes are cute! I want a boa constrictor to snuggle with me!
@ELUNO
Pls post pix, while you are alive. You could automate it…
@f00l There is already a documentary made about me.
/youtube Anaconda Movie
@f00l I’d blame you for something right now but it would just give you more fodder with which to try to get me goated next year so I’ll just stick with blaming you for my inability to blame you for that which you rightly deserve blaming.
@jbartus
I approve of this blame.
@f00l your approval is neither desired nor required. I am being blackmailed out of my rightful blame by you!
@jbartus
I approved of the logical basis for the blame. But thanks - I now know to approve all your blame.
@jbartus
I have formalized my wording slightly.
Allow me to correct my previous statement.
I am @f00l and I approve of this blame.
@f00l humbug!
@jbartus
I am @f00l and I approve of this “humbug”.
Everyone who voted for me sux.
Just had to say that.
And I Am
Randy Newman wrote this song, perhaps I should have gone with his version. Didn’t. To me, Bonnie owns it.
Announcement.
After some testing, I don’t much like seeing a Goat when I look in the mirror.
Frankly sux.
I feel like someone who went to OZ and got into trouble. Why’s Glinda always scarce when you need her?
I might try some of @PlacidPenguin’s shape-shifting techniques.
@f00l
Techniques?
@PlacidPenguin
I assume you have some techniques.
First frog? Then lizard? Then penguin?
Only to some people you looked like a goat for a while, to others you didn’t? All very confusing.
@f00l Like this?
@f00l you are a bad liar… you have been itching to be goat for months, which is why I didn’t vote for you… just drop the act and embrace what you have desired for so long.
@thismyusername
I am @f00l and I approve of your lame-assed protest.
I might be a liar, can’t remember. As for wanting to be Goat, I’ll get to that story eventually, but basically you are incorrect. At least partially so.
I admit to having invited it by attracting notice.
Fucked, @f00l be.
WARNING:
The following is always in effect.
Ignore at your peril.
I still neither like nor dislike taxidermy. The vid is the universe being the universe.
I blame you for the fact that I’m hesitant to press post.
@PlacidPenguin
I am @f00l and I approve of this blame.
@f00l Welcome the the club, fucker.
@Pavlov
I am @f00l and I approve of this message.
TL;DR: My message above was all drivel. Don’t even bother reading. I mean, stoooopid,
@Pavlov
Damn. Fuck. I just thought.
Is there a karmic way in which I can arrange not to get conked when a building falls down while I am invested as goat?
Got any tips?
@f00l Run fast.
@Pavlov
You didn’t TL;DR that.
How can I be expected to ¿comprendè?
TL;DR: this post sux.
I blame you for the fact that our perfectly adequate artificial Christmas tree somehow could not survive another summer in a TX attic.
I’m thinking no tree at home this year.
Significant travel during holidays anyway, but still…
@compunaut
I am @f00l and I approve of this blame.
Put that fake tree sucker out of its misery.
I was supposed to unblame last month’s goat for some reason I forgot about already, but I didn’t, so have an unblame for no apparent reason, @f00l.
@f00l
I blame you for the fact that I immediately noticed what @narfcake did in his comment.
@narfcake
I am @f00l and I approve of this blame.
Damn. Gotta automate that phrase on a phone.
Consider yourself narf’d.
@PlacidPenguin
I am @f00l and I approve of this blame.
You have permission to stop noticing stuff for .00000000000000001 sec.
Ok, back yet? Slacker. Get a move on.
I unblame you for the 7-8’ Christmas tree that I bought for $10 because someone returned it, two days after they bought it, claiming it was “dead.”
I cut off some of the branches at the bottom, and around 6" off the stump. It’s been drinking water for a few days, so I think I’m ok.
@RiotDemon
I am @f00l and I approve of this unblame.
Good to go! Hope some of your Halloween decor makes it onto the tree. Post pix!
@RiotDemon
How about a local Fortune 500 sized company I deal with? Love the place. But the receptionist retired, they have new employees. One of whom decided the 14 foot artificial tree was “dead” and took it to the dumpster.
This year they still have to go tree-shopping.
@RiotDemon I’m pretty sure they’re all dead after you cut them down.
@f00l haha, what an idiot.
I actually don’t have any Halloween stuff for my tree, surprisingly. I don’t even have any Nightmare Before Christmas ornaments. It’s mostly traditional glass balls and a bunch of paper hearts and cones that our family made when I was a kid. Half of my ornaments are lost in the attic that I cannot get into. My brother usually goes up there for me, but I doubt I’ll see him before Christmas. Those ornaments were things like Scooby doo, Star Trek and Star Wars stuff.
I’ve thought about doing a themed tree of some sort, but I can’t decide what.
Also,
I blame you for the fact that the shower handle/lever broke off in my hand. With the water running.
I blame you for the fact that the only way to turn off the shower was to throw on some shorts & a t-shirt (not a cat shirt) while still soaking wet, run to the street, and crank the water shutoff. In the dark. Did I mention it was only about 50F outside? I mean, I’m half Norwegian and all, but still…
I blame you for the fact that it took me almost an hour to figure out how to disassemble that hardware so that the shower stays off. Since the rest of the household prefers to have running water available.
I blame you for the fact that now I have to use the Jacuzzi for bathing until the damn shower is fixed
@compunaut
I am @f00l and I approve of this blame.
Sux and all. But hey, discipline. And I know damned well it ain’t all that cold here, remember?
Ok. If you’re wet. Ok ok ok. Cold.
One shower??? You’re in a vintage place? If you also have a tub, can you convert?
Re jacuzzi: I had to “bathe” in a swimming pool once. Because housesitting, rural, water pump broke. Bottled water, Sponge bath, sponge rinse, jump in pool to get the rest off.
Ok ok ok it was July. Kinda liked doing it.
@compunaut what kind of shower control is it? Might be an easy fix.
Have an unblame:
Bought the fuko.
Should I be glad I didn’t get a captcha?
Pro - It enabled me to get a fuko.
Com - It enabled me to get a fuko.
*con
@PlacidPenguin
I am @f00l and I approve of this unblame.
Which sux. Because I didn’t get a Fuko.
Because I was busy doing my stupid fucking job as a stupid fucking goat typing out my stupid fucking replies because I was too fucking stupid to go fucking check at stupid midnight eastern time to see what the fucking fuck was up. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
Oh, yeah, sorry. Lost my train of thought for a sec.
Congrats on the Fuko.
@f00l
Just for the record, right before midnight on the 30th, I saw that you and @jbartus were both tied at 14, and I hadn’t voted yet…
@PlacidPenguin
I know you did me in, fucker.
@f00l
You have only yourself to blame.
@PlacidPenguin
I am @f00l and I approve of blaming myself for becoming Goat.
There. Feel better now.
Just sticking this here since all the good threads are full of complainers.
@katylava @shawn
I noticed that the site responded SIGNIFICANTLY better than the previous days of this week.
Unless one of you is a lefty, in which case:
@PlacidPenguin they spin up more instances on azure for fuko days… it will be back its normal single instance in no time.
@thismyusername
Fuck them. Or not. What the fuck. Whatever.
@PlacidPenguin don’t forget @harrison! actually @shawn and @harrison are better at server performance stuff than i am. i just look at new relic and throw out guesses, which are usually wrong.
@katylava
I can’t believe I forgot about @harrison
(Also, I need to know how many seconds after midnight the first batch sold out in.)
@PlacidPenguin It’s okay, I’m pretty good at hiding
@harrison
In other words, @shawn and @katylava do all the server work.
Ok I got distracted being goat and not getting a fuko so just noticed
Audible Daily Deal
The audio full cast recording of Hamilton
$3.95.
You got 4 min. Hurry.
https://mobile.audible.com/home.htm?ref-override=pd_l1_home-reg
Calling one nice, innocent, decent fellow.
A person who never did anyone a bit of harm. Sweet. Codes extensions. Gives to charity. Loves his family. Roots for the Pats.
@jbartus
You there?
@jbartus
Hmmm?
i don’t blame you for trying to get me goated. Not at all. Not even a teeny tiny bit. My heart is full of peace and love and charity to all.
It was all just for the greater good, wasn’t it? No, I could never blame you for that.
@jbartus
Yet.
@f00l
I fit all of the criteria until you reached the word nice.
@PlacidPenguin
Perhaps a small amount of ironic description in the intro statement. .
You think maybe?
@f00l
I am @f00l and I approve of this potential blame that might possibly occur some point in the future.
I didn’t get a fucking fuko.
So: for myself - and for everyone else who didn’t get a fuko - here is my Preemptive Apology:
@f00l
I am @f00l and I approve of this apology and I didn’t get a fuko.
I blame everyone on Meh because I am gonna have to get a wrist brace in order to deal with this goat shit.
Yeah I blame me too.
And I blame myself for blaming everyone.
And recurse the blame back in time until the universe collapses.
Whatever. So the universe collapses. Not like it’s a big deal or anything. Btw I didn’t get a fuko. Just wanted to share.
@f00l
I am @f00l and I approve of this apology and I didn’t get a fuko.
@f00l please stop the i approved the messafe thing. Ot makes me think of political ads and makes me mad for which i blame you.
@CaptAmehrican
Yes
/8ball Is @f00l approving of all the blames in third person to make up for the lack of goaty responsibilities by the last two goats?
@CaptAmehrican
I accept and approve of your blame
I blame myself for having approved of various blames and unblames in an annoying way.
Is that an improvement in phrasing, or not? Wanna know.
TL:dr musings re goathood.
Interesting things about being a goat.
As long as you react and take blame and all - or react and curse like @carl669 - or react and insist you are a penguin like @PlacidPenguin - or react and tell stories like @BillLehecka - and you are reasonably decent and not morally repulsive - you can do whatever you want. And since one is on display, there’s an encouragement built in the situation to let one’s inner devils loose a bit or act a small part. One is taking in a role that includes both the court jester and the karmic debt holder of the tribe.
Once my “victory” seemed more likely (@jbartus for promoting me and @PlacidPenguin for assuring this karma entrapment), I began poking around to see what other goats had done. Just got started.
The early goats are harder to track, since the blame is spread over just any thread, not confined and pinned to a focus point thread. @Pavlov had a great contest/reward thing going before his accident. Others did their own contests. @Ignorant almost disappeared, but made it kinda funny. Each one was creative. I really want to read some of @joelmw’s insanely long-winded essays as goat. (He can make me look concise).
And the after way too little sleep for a week and surely-I-can-dodge-this-fantasies, goatdom hit and I @f00lishly had no prep. No fuko either.
Way to go. Wow scapegoat.
I must accept responsibility for this minor disaster. Ok. Onward.
@f00l
I am @f00l and I approve of this apology.
@f00l
@lotsofgoats had a creativeish idea.
@PlacidPenguin
Haven’t read that far yet - bookmarked stuff. Working on it.
And now so very busy with my duties. Don’t I get a crown and scepter?
@f00l
I could send you a crown.
@f00l here you go
@f00l And you can have this slightly used, since I have already posted it in a goat thread before, then someone borrowed it and posted it in another goat thread… so third time is the charm perhaps?
I blame you for this goat!
@ELUNO
Preemptive group apology here.
https://meh.com/forum/topics/december-blame-thread#58413449bb89862c0b6cbdac
“I feel your pain”.
@ELUNO
I am @f00l and I approve of this blame and I didn’t get a fuko.
I blame you that I’ve been sick all week. I blame you that my hair is all jacked up right now because I had my roots bleached, but have been too sick to put purple back in, so it’s blonde at the top, then a weird lavender because my stylist did something weird and claimed it was toner, then hot pink, and finally, the bottom half is my normal purple. I have to wear a hat to leave the house until I feel better.
I blame you that I can’t figure out some things on my new car, too. Like, I should be able to enter a menu to change the autolock settings, but that stupid menu won’t come up no matter what I do. Totally your fault.
I’d blame you that I didn’t get a fuko, but I don’t really care about those anymore.
Also, I’m pretty sure it’s your fault that my puppy doesn’t like it when I brush my hair instead of brushing him.
@PurplePawprints
Re Fuko failure
Preemptive group apology here.
https://meh.com/forum/topics/december-blame-thread#58413449bb89862c0b6cbdac
“I feel your pain”.
@PurplePawprints
I am @f00l and I approve of this blame.
Since you don’t care about fukos anymore I will omit the my ritual whining.
Sorry to hear about your being sick. I have heard that some pups have healing properties.
Sorry about the hair tho it sounds delish as is. Hope you get it fixed as you like soon.
Sorry about the hat.
Sorry about the confusing car menu. I presume those are designed by persons who have never and will never use one.
Not sorry about the puppy who seems lovely. Are you sure you want to mess with your hair since you could hang with the pup instead?
@PurplePawprints lovely dog!
@ELUNO Thanks!
@f00l He’s currently laying across the bed on my feet, preventing me from going to my daughter’s school to help sort a fundraiser. He’s doing his best to help me feel better by forcing me to stay home and rest.
And yeah, he’s quite pretty.
@f00l Congrats on your goatiness. But I always hesitate with congratulations as I have always seen the GOAT badge as a punishment. Anyway, have fun with it.
@mfladd
Of course it’s a punishment. @f00l already realized a few hours into his goathood that this month won’t be good to him Meh forum-wise.
@mfladd
I am @f00l and I approve of this failure to congratulate.
30 days to go. 30 days …
PS. Montel had better stay far away from me.
@f00l
3000 bottles of beer on the wall
3000 bottles of beer
Take one down, don’t share it around
2999 bottles of beer on the wall
Figured you’d need at least 100 a day to get through this : )
@Kidsandliz
I am @f00l and I approve of this generous sign of empathy.
Although I might take the fifth.
Got any scotch or bourbon? I wouldn’t have to take the actual bottle. You’d be welcome to the empty.
@f00l Here this ought to do it
@Kidsandliz
For a few daze.
Speaking as Goat
I have always avoided sleeping pills sedatives hypnotics and similar.
Do they make any where one pill will flatten you for 30 days?
@f00l This?
Used like this?
@f00l No. You can just suffer. And I blame you because I can’t find my toe socks which let me wear thong sandals in winter.
@OldCatLady
I accept responsibility and if you find your toe sox, or get new ones, I wanna pic.
Bye how can it be cold enuf for sox in Florida? I’m still in sandals, in a place that has actual, if mildish, winters.
I don’t think I ever wanted stopped wearing sandals or wanted sox with sandals in FL.
@OldCatLady don’t you live in Florida? It never gets cold enough to need socks to wear sandals!
Source: Lived there for two years, also wearing sandals right now (admittedly not thongs) in Massachusetts.
@f00l I unblame you for this.
@jbartus I blame @f00l right back again. It was 33 F here last week, and I had to wear my sneaker bootie slippers, which were too warm. I still can’t find the damned socks, but it’s going to be 80 F all next week, so it doesn’t matter.
@jbartus
I accept the unblame.
And I accepted sandals in winter and sandals in the snow like they do in Colorado. And sandals with sox and toe-sox.
And I accept open-air toes as long as no one is @f00l enuf to be in sandals or flip-flops and shorts, deep into very high grass, and (wow-look-at-that!) 4 feet from a rattler.
No one would ever be that dumb. Right?
No wonder non-@f00ls wear boots and jeans in high-grass rural areas. Hey! They have good reasons for those boots!
@OldCatLady
I accept blame for it being 33deg F in Florida. That’s just wrong. Even more so than a major rainstorm in LA.
Hope the groves didn’t get nipped.
I also accept full blame for the forecast in FL being in the 80’s soon, since you will get to lord it over everyone else.
@f00l @OldCatLady that wouldn’t by any chance be 33F at night when everybody’s inside sleeping anyhow?
And don’t think I still don’t blame you for not getting a fuko even though I didn’t even try…
@Kidsandliz
Some you wish to blame me and you’re just being nice?
In which case I am compelled to complete the ritual
Preemptive group apology here.
https://meh.com/forum/topics/december-blame-thread#58413449bb89862c0b6cbdac
“I feel your pain”.
If the apology was unnecessary or redundant, then I must apologize for my failure to read the situation.
I am @f00l and I approve of @kidsandliz’s failure to blame me for not trying to get a fuko or for not getting one.
I approve of people not getting fukos esp if they don’t even try.
@f00l ritual preemptive group apologies do not apply here. And I still blame you for no fuko even though I didn’t try. I blame you for not trying too. And had I tried I’d blame you for being a robot which is the usual cause of not getting one. So no matter what I blame you. : )
@f00l You get an unblame since @Kidsandliz covered all that I would have blamed you for.
@narfcake
Looks like I’ll be busy this month countering any unblame which come from you and/or @Kidsandliz.
(Don’t tell @f00l)
@PlacidPenguin Don’t worry, the blames will coming in due time.
@Kidsandliz
(Wait a sec, gotta catch my breath first)
I accept responsibility for your not getting a fuko even tho you didn’t try.
I accept responsibility for having misread the situation and offered you a Ritual Apology.
I accept responsibility that the ritual apology was lame anyway.
I accept responsibility for having not tried to get a fuko at midnight eastern.
I accept responsibility for having tried to get a fuko at 8am eastern and failed.
i accept responsibility for having tried to get a fuko at 4pm eastern and failed. Fuck dammit for that.
I accept responsibility for trying to convince myself all day long that Fukos are worthless nothings designed to induce hysterical stupid mass behavior and that I’m above all that I don’t want one anyway.
I accept responsibility for failing to finally convince my reptile brain and my competitive brain and my “smart” brain that I didn’t want one.
I accept responsibility for having wanted one even tho I’m embarassed to admit it.
I accept responsibility for admitting it anyway.
I accept responsibility for not being entirely “above all that”. Or perhaps for not being even a little “above all that”.
I accept responsibility for the fucking capcha.
I accept responsibility for not being a Robot.
Wait a min.
Hmmm.
I accept responsibility for being a Robot.
I accept responsibility for being the sort of Robot whose programming evaluates the Three Laws as being “ok once, but very pre-millennium by today’s standards”. Fuck those. Asimov, Where Art Thou?
I accept responsibility for being the sort of Robot who is no better at capchas than the lame-ass humans.
I accept responsibility for being a Robot who possesses an inferior instruction set and fucked over algorithms and bad wiring due to the Robits who designed me having been way too Robot-stoned when they did the work. They think it’s funny.
@narfcake
I accept the unblame you offered due to @kidsandliz having a mean right hook.
@PlacidPenguin
@narfcake
I accept blame for your intended future torment of me.
@Kidsandliz
I accept responsibility for not knowing whether or not I left anything out of the monster blame acceptance post.
@f00l How is it torment if you’re enjoying it?
(That’s another unblame, BTW.)
@narfcake
We speak of future torment.
I am wired to be aware of pain and to process “pain signals” as PAIN.
I cannot know if I will be able to continue enjoying all matter of your activities. You may be holding back for now.
I accept responsibility for that.
@f00l The future? Nah.
http://shirt.woot.com/offers/not-today
I mean, it’s not like I even voted for you last month. I blame last month’s
goatpenguin for that … not that I voted for him either.@narfcake
I accept and appreciate your kindness during the vote.
I accept that I am bad-karma’d to the degree that I won anyway.
I accept that it’s my fault I have such horrible karma.
I blame you for the fact that my fuko hasn’t shipped yet.
@PlacidPenguin I’m blaming @f00l that the fuko that I didn’t order hasn’t shipped yet either!
@narfcake
Or maybe it did with same day delivery.
Didn’t you get a not box?
@PlacidPenguin Is that like a parabox?
/giphy parabox
@narfcake
@placidPenguin
I accept blame, fuckers.
@f00l I unblame you because I finally found my rechargeable batteries, changed the ones in the solar patio lights, and they work perfectly. The batteries and charger were in the ‘Hurricane Supplies’ box. They were useless during the hurricane, because I hadn’t charged them. Whose fault was - oh. Mine.
@OldCatLady
I accept unblame for your batteries.
I accept responsibility that at some point in the next three months I’m gonna wish I were in Florida.
I accept blame that at some point over the next few hurricanes I’m gonna be glad not to be too near the coast. Unless the coast shifts a bit nearer, which it might.
I blame myself for misspelling certain werds all the time even tho I know better or even tho I don’t know better.
I blame myself for auto-make-me-look-bad-correct helping so much
Take that, you weeny captcha.
Actually autocorrect first gave me:
“I Blake myself”
That sounds kinda worthy as something to do today.
/image Blake tyger
I blame you for the unusually cold and windy night for tonights parade of lighted boats.
@CaptAmehrican
I accept this blame.
Where? You got pix?
@f00l It’s not night yet…
@Kidsandliz
Was hoping to spur the photo activity getting posted.
I blame myself for bad phrasing.
I accept this blame.
@f00l
@CaptAmehrican
V nice
I blame you for the fact that instead of replying to your message, I by mistake clicked tattle.
@f00l It’s your fault that I don’t know how to click ‘tattle’
@PlacidPenguin So how do you click tattle and where is tattle?
@Kidsandliz @OldCatLady
In PMs, it’s right next to the reply button.
@PlacidPenguin I see nothing right next to the reply button… on one side the star and number of stars, on the other side nothing.
@Kidsandliz
Oh. OK. I see what happened.
@f00l - I blame you for the fact that I didn’t mention I was talking about Woot.
@PlacidPenguin @f00l and I blame you both (yes one is a retroactive blame) that I don’t have ESP - both of you as I could have used it last month and could use it this month too.
@PlacidPenguin It’s the fault of @f00l that you meant to post this to https://meh.com/forum/topics/drunk-thoughts
@OldCatLady
I’m not dnruk in any way, spahe, or from.
@OldCatLady
@PlacidPenguin
I blame myself for not knowing in which context you two are using the word “tattle”.
Where, perchance?
In the Meh forums? If so, I didn’t even know there was a "tattle* function here.
Oh, I see. WOOT.
I blame myself for not refreshing to see the additional info before I replied.
I accept all these blames.
@Kidsandliz
I accept your blame and apologize for your lack of ESP.
Perhaps in the next Meh exchange?
@f00l E.S.P.
And yes, you are getting blamed for the tattle button’s proximity to the reply button. I didn’t click any further on that report, though. I was “Oh, somebody missed the reply button again. They’ll figure it out, I guess.”, and left it at that.
@narfcake
I feel rather rattled on
I blame myself for this
I accept the blame.
@narfcake
Could you delete the PM which you got 9 hours ago entitled
@PlacidPenguin
I replied.
Can you still see thread or no?
@PlacidPenguin The one in which I don’t have an answer to? Yes.
I cannot delete the one that was previously tattled on, however.
@narfcake
You already read that one, so my question is moot. As for the other one, it’s fine. I’ll forgive you.
/@narfcake forgiving cat T-shirt
@PlacidPenguin Forgive? I don’t think cats know about that.
https://www.threadless.com/product/6035/careless_whisker
@f00l
Wanna take blame for the fact that you keep on asking me the same question even though I’ve told you that it was a (sorta) joke?
@PlacidPenguin
I will take that blame. I was pretty tired did not keep track of stuff. Some stuff stayed in head other stuff floated away.
@f00l Aha! The Goatly Duties are accumulating like a load of snow on the roof. Soon they’ll crash through and you’ll be like ‘What just happened?’. I suppose you could wear a pointy elf goat hat to fend off the avalanche.
@OldCatLady
I’m gonna become one with the avalanche.
Practicing.
Zen.
Stillness.
Goat.
@OldCatLady
@f00l made a costly mistake on Friday with regards to being goat.
I’m going to be using it to my advantage.
@PlacidPenguin
Ok.
Pls tell me what I did on Friday. It’s not like I can undo it. I fail to see a single DeLorean or Tardis nearby, so unfixable.
Needs to get my reserves of endurance for the public prouncement if my flaws fully replenished.
Help me prepare.
@f00l
Prepare for what?
@PlacidPenguin
/image the same thing we do every night
@narfcake
This was from Sunday, so Monday night, or Wednesday night?
@PlacidPenguin
What was from what? Are
We talking about days? Or
Do we speak of blame?
I’d give you an unblame, but I can’t bring myself to do so. (And not just because that job belongs to @narfcake.)
I’d send him a PM on Woot, but I can’t bring myself to let more people know the username which you know. One too many people know it already.
What I’m trying to say is: take another blame for yourself.
@PlacidPenguin Thanking the scapegoat is not a one-user job.
@narfcake
Taking blame is a one user job tho.
“Yeah, it’s just lovely, thanks for asking. I couldn’t want anything more. I’m so honored.”
@narfcake
There’s a difference between thanking and unblaming.
I could bring myself (after a while) to thank the goat, but I can’t bring myself to unblame it.
@PlacidPenguin
I accept blame for your not wanting to send a pm to narfcake on woot.
Since I know the username, if you wish, send me the pm for @narfcake. I’ll play the cutout, and no one will ever know you two communicated.
All very Spy Vs Spy.
Oh yeah I totally completely utterly cross-my-heart will not read anything you want forwarded. No way. Not a word. Never would. Ever ever ever. I promise. You gotta believe.
@PlacidPenguin
PS
I am lying. (T/F?)
But with a good heart and good intentions.
(Pretty much T I hope - you be the judge)
@PlacidPenguin
Re thanking vs unblaming.
Hey, goats eat anything! We’re good.
@f00l
Just sent the message for @narfcake.
Also you could read it if you really want to…
@narfcake
vtaber gur zrffntr
@PlacidPenguin
Oh fuck you.
Super secret message forwarded. Didn’t tell nobody.
@f00l
So you told everybody?
@PlacidPenguin
Told nobody!
They can take away our lives, but that can’t take our freedom!
Or your super secret amazing profound message!
/giphy braveheart
@f00l
Was on TV a few days ago.
@PlacidPenguin
The history is all wrong.
William Wallace never met the Isabella, She-Wolf of France, who was still seriously 3 years old in France at the time. And who was every bit as ruthless as portrayed here and more, after she finally crossed the channel.
Isabella’s husband, Edward Ii, was a dickhead of a king for a while. They (Isabella and some nobles) are said to have gotten v serious revenge on him much later.
There is no record of the English doing that “first night” stuff, although they were vile and contemptuous in other ways.
Edward I, daddy-king, was a serious warrior and ruthless motherfucker in matters of war and not to be crossed. Records don’t make him out to be a psychopath when not at war tho. Also really tall. “Longshanks” IRL.
That blue face-paint 1000 years out of date. But so cinematic.
Kilts didn’t show up for another 400-500 years.
“Braveheart” historically refers to Edward the Bruce, not to William Wallace. The Scots do tend to know Scottish history, but Hollywood scriptwriters do not.
William the Bruce never directly betrayed William Wallace.
William Wallace resigned from his army due to some failures and spent several years hiding in England in exile before his arrest.
And.
So visually fun that you can watch it on a loop. Just assume all the history is on a par with Snow White.
And you can kinda play that score non-stop.
James Horner, you are an asshole for crashing your plane instead of writing more scores.
@PlacidPenguin
Send away. Love rants.
@f00l
I have no fucking mind.
Not William the Bruce
Not Edward the Bruce.
There are already enough Edwards and Williams hanging out in this story.
Robert the Bruce.
Aka the historical Braveheart.
And I knew that.
Can I blame this on the Goat?
@f00l
Turns out, I sent some PMs to people early this morning.
Don’t fully remember sending them, and I’m a bit scared to look at what I sent.
@f00l Nitpicky: Gilgamesh claimed ‘first night’ rights. The custom apparently really did continue. Snopes goes into much detail.
It is certain
/8ball Can I blame this on the Goat?
@OldCatLady
You may rely on it
/8ball should you blame the goat?
From my very limited reading, the references are either literary, or historically not contemporary, and no source ever cites specifics.
The whole thing is provocative and disgusting, so it makes for a powerful potential continuing myth, since everyone can imagine it. Or it may have been a real feudal practice here and there. Certainly some of those lords were nasty enough that if they wanted to do this, their consciences would hardly stop them. And with almost no power and no communication available to the serfs and peasants, the only stories that might travel might well have the feel of myth once those stories had made it out to the wider world.
If it was real, there are no contemporaneous historical accounts. And certainly no accounts that Edward I ever offered that to English nobles
And there are practical risks to a lord: desease, obviously; assassination or assassination attempts, that night or later; a lord who acted out this practical might well fear to walk or ride his estates in solitude, a fear which other lords would view with contempt. If this practice were known to the lord’s peers or to the clergy, the lord would start to have problems in relations with church, court and king; and in a society interlaced with church and aristocratic social power, the lord would have social rejection and potential problems finding highborn and well-connected spouses for his children once word was out.
A lord was, after all, far wealthier and more powerful than 99%+ of everyone else. Most lords who wanted mistresses could afford and get multiple ones if they chose: women not from the peasant classes would have better manners and education, and potentially be less of a health risk. And they and their families might well be honored by the lord’s interest and wish to extend the lord’s “patronage” of the woman and her family as far as they could.
Which isn’t to say there weren’t oceans-full of forced marriage, abuse, assault, degradation; and following silence to protect the aristocracy. Just that this particular practice seems to be more myth than fact.
Except that I get my info on the net, so ignore me.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droit_du_seigneur
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/09/jus-primae-noctis-fact-fiction/
http://www.snopes.com/weddings/customs/droit.asp
https://www.quora.com/Middle-Ages-Was-the-ius-primae-noctis-ever-actually-exercised
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Jus_primae_noctis
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1139/did-medieval-lords-have-right-of-the-first-night-with-the-local-brides
I blame myself for not much liking all the grass weeds bushes and trash I eat compulsively now.
I accept this blame.
Random late nite.
TL;dr
It’s lit. No, worse, a poem. Skip it.
I really like this poem, even if a line or two doesn’t quite wear well by common values today.
Disclaimer: I don’t know anything about poetry or literature.
Skunk Hour
By Robert Lowell
Published 1958
(For Elizabeth Bishop)
[Dedication: Lowell’s poem is modeled on Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “The Armadillo,” which Bishop had dedicated to Lowell.]
Nautilus Island’s hermit
heiress still lives through winter in her Spartan cottage;
her sheep still graze above the sea.
Her son’s a bishop. Her farmer
is first selectman in our village;
she’s in her dotage.
Thirsting for
the hierarchic privacy
of Queen Victoria’s century,
she buys up all
the eyesores facing her shore,
and lets them fall.
The season’s ill—
we’ve lost our summer millionaire,
who seemed to leap from an L. L. Bean
catalogue. His nine-knot yawl
was auctioned off to lobstermen.
A red fox stain covers Blue Hill.
And now our fairy
decorator brightens his shop for fall;
his fishnet’s filled with orange cork,
orange, his cobbler’s bench and awl;
there is no money in his work,
he’d rather marry.
One dark night,
my Tudor Ford climbed the hill’s skull;
I watched for love-cars . Lights turned down,
they lay together, hull to hull,
where the graveyard shelves on the town. . . .
My mind’s not right.
A car radio bleats,
“Love, O careless Love. . . .” I hear
my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell,
as if my hand were at its throat. . . .
I myself am hell;
nobody’s here—
only skunks, that search
in the moonlight for a bite to eat.
They march on their soles up Main Street:
white stripes, moonstruck eyes’ red fire
under the chalk-dry and spar spire
of the Trinitarian Church.
I stand on top
of our back steps and breathe the rich air—
a mother skunk with her column of kittens swills the garbage pail
She jabs her wedge-head in a cup
of sour cream, drops her ostrich tail,
and will not scare.
@f00l
Started at the end. I burst into laughter.
Tears coming out of my tear ducts.
Note: this poem was included in the very influential book Life Studies; the poems within were simple and raw in contrast to his earlier style. The book won the National Book Award for poetry.
Lowell suffered all his life from manic-depression and was repeatedly hospitalized.
He had this to say about writing, from the later poem Epilogue:
But sometimes everything I write
with the threadbare art of my eye
seems a snapshot,
lurid, rapid, garish, grouped,
heightened from life,
yet paralyzed by fact.
All’s misalliance.
Yet why not say what happened?
@f00l
Just in case anyone actually likes the poem, here is another R Lowell poem I like.
[For those who don’t know, Hart Crane was a mid-century American poet and wild man of great promise who killed himself at age 32. Critically he is controversial: he has a small devoted fanbase. This poem is Robert Lowell’s tribute, imagining Crane’s own thoughts.]
Words for Hart Crane
Robert Lowell
“When the Pulitzers showered on some dope
or screw who flushed our dry mouths out with soap,
few people would consider why I took
to stalking sailors, and scattered Uncle Sam’s
phoney gold-plated laurels to the birds.
Because I knew my Whitman like a book,
stranger in America, tell my country: I,
Catullus redivivus, once the rage
of the Village and Paris, used to play my role
of homosexual, wolfing the stray lambs
who hungered by the Place de la Concorde.
My profit was a pocket with a hole.
Who asks for me, the Shelley of my age,
must lay his heart out for my bed and board.”
[‘Words for Hart Crane’ is excerpted from Lowell’s Collected Poems.]
I blame you for the fact that I had a dream that I finally got a BOC.
I unblame you for the fact that thankfully it was just a dream.
@PlacidPenguin
http://shirt.woot.com/offers/youre-dreaming
@narfcake
Talk about a delightful shirt.
If only this was glow in the dark.
@PlacidPenguin
I accept the blame for the dream, and for the unblame which follows.
I blame myself for some confusion here. I accept this blame.
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l takes blame for for-
Getting to take blame for shirt
No-glow in the dark.
Spent 3 1/2 years working on something, and last week it fell through.
Not exactly “thrilled” right now.
@PlacidPenguin
I blame self that whatever this long project was, it does not currently leave you thrilled.
I blame The Liquor.
@f00l
I blame you for the fact that @Jim_Lahey blamed someone/something other than you.
@PlacidPenguin
@Jim_Lahey
I blame self that @Jim_Lahey blamed liquor instead of me.
Since you have me to blame this month, why not enjoy the liquor instead of having a complicated relationship with it?
@Kidsandliz
I blame myself for your Meh image, which was cute, and that you did not post a blame to go with.
@f00l My mistake. I apologize. I blame you for not being able to get rid of the german cockroaches in my apartment nor the flour moths despite buying sticky card things, hot shot liquid poison stuff and the apt complex using gel poison (they were there when I moved in - numbers are down but not gone). Sigh.
@Kidsandliz
I blame myself for all your indoor insects.
One of the joys of living in the far south close to the gulf.
Also blame self that you apologized to me.
@Kidsandliz How do you know they’re German? Or did you mean germin’?
@compunaut Because that is what kind are in my apartment - German cockroach.
@Kidsandliz In Germany they’re known as the Russian roach
@compunaut @Kidsandliz
@PlacidPenguin that’s no roach, that’s a grasspooper
i was told roaches can survive without food a very long time, but not without water - leave no drips!
@Yoda_Daenerys
@PlacidPenguin
Grasshopper
@f00l kung fu
@f00l I unblame you for 201.
@jbartus
I accept the unblame even tho I’m sure it will come back to bite me later somehow.
Although I have Brady on a Fantasy Team, so perhaps I will triumph.
Take two more blames:
It’s snowing. In December!
A box which was supposed to be shipped 6 weeks ago still hasn’t been shipped, thus incurring a fee for usage of the item even though it never left the box.
@PlacidPenguin
Snow in Dec on NYC area does sound like kinda the local weather has it in for you. I accept blame for this.
Don’t quite understand the biz about the box that didn’t ship, and the usage fee, and how that managed not to get dealt with, but I do accept blame for it.
I also accept blame for not quite understanding what’s going on.
@f00l
Simple. There’s a box with an item in it. The item has a monthly fee associated with it.
The box never got sent back, so I was hit with the usage fee (+ tax).
I blame you that you couldn’t figure that out.
@PlacidPenguin
Multiple possible scenarios occurred to me.
Am to blame for not understanding fully.
Am to blame for multiple possible scenarios.
Awake at 4am.
Attempting to live up to my username:
I tormented this thread last night by putting poetry in it. The most unread of the written literary arts. Still perhaps useful to a few?
What next?
Short excerpts from a book? No spoilers?
Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy
By John Le Carré
Published 1974
(It’s tricky to do this - wish for no spoilers - no dialogue because too much backstory and character info would be needed, tho Le Carre is a master at dialogue - just wish to offer a feel to the prose.)
(The recent film has its qualities, but is only barely about the book in outline. The earlier BBC miniseries w Alec Guinness did better with the source material, yet still barely touches on the riches to be had for art of reading.)
They were extraordinary nights for Smiley, alone up there on the top floor. Thinking of them afterwards—though his days between were just as fraught, and on the surface more eventful—he recalled them as a single journey, almost a single night. “And you’ll do it,” Lacon had piped shamelessly in the garden. “Go forwards, go backwards?” As Smiley retraced path after path into his own past, there was no longer any difference between the two: forwards or backwards, it was the same journey and its destination lay ahead of him. There was nothing in that room, no object among that whole magpie collection of tattered hotel junk, that separated him from the rooms of his recollection. He was back on the top floor of the Circus, in his own plain office with the Oxford prints, just as he had left it a year ago. Beyond his door lay the low-ceilinged anteroom where Control’s grey-haired ladies, the mothers, softly typed and answered telephones; while here in the hotel an undiscovered genius along the corridor night and day tapped patiently at an old machine. At the anteroom’s far end—in Mrs. Pope Graham’s world there was a bathroom there, and a warning not to use it—stood the blank door that led to Control’s sanctuary: an alley of a place, with old steel cupboards and old red books, a smell of sweet dust and jasmine tea. Behind the desk Control himself, a carcass of a man by then, with his lank grey forelock and his smile as warm as a skull.
Now for a while Lacon’s files, instead of Smiley’s memory, once more took up the story. It was typical of the atmosphere of those last months that, having been brought in on the affair at the beginning, Smiley should have received no subsequent word of how it had developed. Control detested failure as he detested illness, and his own failures most. He knew that to recognise failure was to live with it; that a service that did not struggle did not survive. He detested the silk-shirt agents, who hogged large chunks of the budget to the detriment of the bread-and-butter networks in which he put his faith. He loved success, but he detested miracles if they put the rest of his endeavour out of focus. He detested weakness as he detested sentiment and religion, and he detested Percy Alleline, who had a dash of most of them. His way of dealing with them was literally to close the door: to withdraw into the dingy solitude of his upper rooms, receive no visitors, and have all his phone calls fed to him by the mothers. The same quiet ladies fed him jasmine tea and the countless office files that he sent for and returned in heaps. Smiley would see them piled before the door as he went about his own business of trying to keep the rest of the Circus afloat. Many were old, from the days before Control led the pack. Some were personal, the biographies of past and present members of the service. Control never said what he was doing. If Smiley asked the mothers, or if Bill Haydon sauntered in, favourite boy, and made the same enquiry, they only shook their heads or silently raised their eyebrows towards paradise: “A terminal case,” said these gentle glances. “We are humouring a great man at the end of his career.” But Smiley—as he now patiently leafed through file after file, and in a corner of his complex mind rehearsed Irina’s diary to Ricki Tarr—Smiley knew, and in a quite real way took comfort from the knowledge, that he was not after all the first to make this journey of exploration; that Control’s ghost was his companion into all but the furthest reaches; and might even have stayed the whole distance if Operation Testify, at the eleventh hour, had not stopped him dead.
It was almost four o’clock on the afternoon of the same day. Safe houses I have known, thought Guillam, looking round the gloomy flat. He could write of them the way a commercial traveller could write about hotels: from your five-star hall of mirrors in Belgravia, with Wedgwood pilasters and gilded oak leaves, to this two-room scalp-hunters’ shakedown in Lexham Gardens, smelling of dust and drains, with a three-foot fire extinguisher in the pitch-dark hall. Over the fireplace, cavaliers drinking out of pewter. On the nest of tables, sea-shells for ashtrays; and in the grey kitchen, anonymous instructions to “Be Sure and Turn Off the Gas Both Cocks.” He was crossing the hall when the house bell rang, exactly on time. He lifted the phone and heard Toby’s distorted voice howling in the earpiece. He pressed the button and heard the clunk of the electric lock echoing in the stairwell. He opened the front door but left it on the chain till he was sure Toby was alone.
@f00l I beg of you: turn your attempts to haiku. It’s not exactly poetry, and it’s really short. Compose holiday haiku. Yeah.
@OldCatLady @f00l
Be much more concise
Holiday Haiku would work
Accept the challenge
@Kidsandliz @OldCatLady @f00l
Some people like long poems where we lose track of thought after the 7th word on the 2nd line though.
@PlacidPenguin @OldCatLady @f00l
That is why there is a third line…
Or if one is really ambitious (and would like to contribute to the loose track problem) they can write a Tanka which is:
five/seven/five/seven/seven syllables, usually with a space after the Haiku portion so looks like this:
5
7
5
7
7
@Kidsandliz How about some good def poetry?
@ELUNO
@OldCatLady
@PlacidPenguin
@Kidsandliz
Ok so everyone hates this.
Feared that would be the case.
I take responsibility and all that.
Here is my apology haiku, stolen from Cobain.
What else should I be
In the sun I feel as one
All apologies.
(Not in quite as bad a mood as that haiku might lead one to believe
)
@f00l
Haiku blame the goat
Last month we had penguin
Now a fool goat, meh
@CaptAmehrican
The goat accepts blame
The goat accepts all the blame
Goat is resolute.
@f00l And here I thought you’d say as your last line
The pope absolved goat.
@Kidsandliz
Paradox of Blame:
Blame is the duty of Goat
The Pope absolves Goat.
@Kidsandliz
Congratulations. I believe you broke @f00l.
Well done.
@PlacidPenguin
@kidsandliz
@f00l is broken and
Shattered. @f00l carefully picks
up @f00l’s shattered mind.
Outlook is being a piece of shit again. I’m more than certain it’s Microsoft’s fault, but you’re easier to blame, @f00l.
@narfcake
Apologize for outlook.
While I’m on topic, apologize for Microsoft as well.
@f00l You’ll need a lot more words than that if you’re accepting the blame for Microsoft. I mean, consider Vista alone…
@compunaut Hah!
@f00l http://www.pcworld.com/article/3007756/windows/windows-at-30-microsofts-biggest-blunders.html
@narfcake
@compunaut
The Goat spends all free
Time accepting all Micro
Soft’s various sins.
@narfcake You’ve got the Bluetooth addon disabled (if it’s on your system)? That caused a lot of seemingly random problems in Microsoft Office.
It’s eighty fucking two and getting hotter here. My A/C is running. Friday we’ll have a high of fifty fucking two. This is the fault of @f00l.
@OldCatLady
Limited Sympa
Thy for Florida Weather
Weather weird here too
The Goat accepts blame.
Dammit, @PlacidPenguin!! I ordered a penguinshirtwoot and received a catshirtswoot on blue instead!
(@f00l is innocent; I ordered this in November.)
@narfcake But is was delivered in Dec so @f00l is not absolved after all… (just making sure blame is spread around - you are welcome).
@narfcake
If we’re really going to drag November back into this, you need to include the goatapuss a.k.a @snapster
(And just for giggles I also have to tag @shawn)
@Kidsandliz If woot mucks it up again (and there’s a reasonable chance of that), @f00l gets extra extra extra blame.
@PlacidPenguin Since you just tagged them, thank you!
@snapster When are the catshirts coming?
@narfcake
@f00l accepts exact
Ly one-half of the blame for
Shirt received this month.
@narfcake
@f00l is prepared to
Accept extra extra blame
Even some more blame
Fine, whatever, @fool
I still blame @PlacidPenguin
For the non-penguin.
@narfcake
@f00l (I was waiting to see if you’d fix typo).
All according to plan.
@PlacidPenguin
Bad autocorrect
And many many typos
Are The Way Of @f00l.
@f00l claims typos and
Errors are autocorrect’s fault.
@f00l might be lying.
@f00l gets an unblame
Catshirtswoot resent a shirt
With penguins, not cat.
Also an unblame
That catshirtswoot mug arrived
Intact with dunnage.
Until I have more time, take the blame for this. I mean, seriously, what the fuck?
@joelmw My jaw, it hurts from being dropped so many times in the last week. That’s @f00l’s fault.
@joelmw
@f00l’s haikus barely
Absorb the hideous blame
For Trump’s cabinet.
@joelmw
@f00l takes all blame for
@joelmw’s use of too
Few words in blame Post.
(Counting “w” pronounced as two syllables here)
I blame you for this ridiculously long thread with so much more month left to go, even though it was started by @PlacidPenguin.
@rockblossom @f00l
I have a lot more blaming to do before the month is up.
@rockblossom
@f00l accepts blame tho
@f00l tried to make the thread much
Longer with lit quotes.
@f00l
Blame is not enough?
Now you answer in haiku?
Masochistic @f00l !
@rockblossom
Masochism is
The Goat’s Goatly assignment
Goat bears the burden.
The weather sux here
@f00l is contemplating some
Serious self-blame.
@f00l
Don’t forget to accept blame for the fact that this thread still hasn’t surpassed last month’s blame thread.
It’s only the 5th
Versus a full month of blame
For @PlacidPenguin
@narfcake
@f00l thanks great @narfcake
For being generous of
spirit with haikus.
@narfcake
Keep in mind that @f00l started at least 4 hours and 37 minutes later into the day than I did.
(Time is based on threads were posted for this month and last month. Considering that reach of those was at least a couple of minutes after the badge was given…)
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l is much guilted
And shamed because this month’s blame
Thread is way too short.
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l blames self because
the December blame and shame
Thread started so late.
All the highways suck.
Traffic jams on every
Road. Why go someplace?
@f00l
(Counting “every” as three syllables)
@f00l despises Stan-
Dard Time which sux. Daylight Sa-
vings Time Is better.
Will you have time for Fantasy Movie League while you’re busy being
?
@compunaut
I will continue
To Fail at the Movie
League. You will beat me.
(Counting “fail” as two syllables)
So of course, I’m blaming you for the site issue.
Although I guess I could just demand that @katylava upgrade the servers, but of course:
@PlacidPenguin no no no… it’s just as much my job. i just said i’m not as good at that part of it it as @harrison and @shawn.
anyway you forgot “4. She’s on vacation”
@katylava
So you went to FL of your own volition?
@PlacidPenguin
@Katylava
@f00l is to blame for
@katylava’s vacation
Sunny Florida.
@f00l You get unblamed for Sunny Florida’s idea of December weather for @katylava 's vacation. It was 85 F here yesterday.
@OldCatLady
@f00l is to blame for
Bad weather everywhere
Except Florida.
Purple kittencorn!
http://www.teeturtle.com/products/kittencorn-mini
Have an unblame, @f00l!
@narfcake
On the flip side, @f00l gets an unblame because I want one, but i don’t know which one I want.
I COULD get all 5 for $50, but I can’t take away from the budget to “persuade” Meh staff for “just in case” scenarios…
@PlacidPenguin There are six kittencorns.
@narfcake
I blame @f00l for the typo. I noticed 6, and immediately wanted all 6. Ended up typing 5.
@PlacidPenguin That’s a fair blame.
@narfcake
Any blame I dispence is fair.
Shame I wasn’t active May 2015.
@narfcake
@f00l the rancid goat
Is happy happy happy
Happy for unblame.
@PlacidPenguin
“Many choices” blame,
For counting, for typos, for
May 2015.
Since this is the meh Blame thread and I turn a BIG birthday age number on December 20 --So who can I blame for being so old-- guess I shall blame my parents…not @f00l as he is being blamed enough - actually sure @f00l can’t be blamed for that one …
@AttyVette
Honestly, it would be slightly weird if you were to blame @f00l for that…
@PlacidPenguin lol agreed but finished revising while I guess you were posting this reply – sucks getting old I can say that though —
@AttyVette Of course you should blame @f00l!
But you can also unblame him since you still look so young and fabulous!
@AttyVette Blame doctors who patched you up in the emergency room, police who stopped baddies who were determined to erase you personally, leaders who sent intelligence agents to gather information from hostiles bent on destroying you and yours.
@OldCatLady
@AttyVette
@ELUNO
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l is to blame for
Everyone getting older
@f00l gets older too.
@ELUNO aww wish it were true
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
After staring at this since Thursday, my brain has finally calmed down.
@f00l There aren’t enough blames to blame you for this injustice. I liked having a separate site where there was talk of drones.
I prefer to keep certain things away from each other, but now Drone.Horse is folding back into the main Meh forum.
I’m extremely displeased.
@PlacidPenguin
Apologies deep
And profound from poor tired @f00l
At end of drone.horse.
@fool, where is the Flying Cars poll thread? I have so much to say about them. I must educate the poor, misguided souls who think they may be a good idea.
@PocketBrain
Have you not watched any “future themed” movies?
@PocketBrain
@f00l is to blame that
@pocketbrain has not started
A Flying Cars thread.
@PlacidPenguin
Some persons have not
Seen "future-themed films. You should
Blame poor @f00l for this.
Haven’t had this month fun since @TaRDy was goat.
Meanwhile, spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to acquire something quickly, only to remember that I have 2 of that something sitting right near me.
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l is so very
Sorry re lost 10 minutes.
Lost time never comes home.
@PlacidPenguin, Damnit @f00l why was I summoned here for something I didn’t do wrong?
@TaRDy @f00l
Woohoo! It worked.
@TaRDy
@f00l is to blame for
@TaRDy being summoned and
Those weird capitals.
I forgot to unblame you last night that catshirtswoot has a catshirt today.
http://shirt.woot.com/offers/good-kitty-fix-the-sweater
@f00l
Take a blame for the fact that @narfcake did a late unblame.
@PlacidPenguin Is it a double blame for @f00l that I didn’t post the one at TeeTurtle either, even though I have no intention of getting it because of the text?
http://www.teeturtle.com/products/crazy-cat-lady
@narfcake
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l happily takes
All blame for logically
Possible CatShirts.
@f00l also takes blame
For all existing catshirts
@f00l will not share blame.
/image all catshirts
/image catshirtswoot catshirts
/image unblame @f00l
(For proper haiku
Don’t read the slash; just image
Or else it’s more blames.)
@narfcake
@f00l grins gleefully
And basks in unblame status
@f00l loves all catshirts.
I blame you for the fact that you’re trying to make us pity you.
Might it have something to do with the fact that you’re on track to get the most blame as goat?
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l is too busy
Counting syllables to care
Re pity and blame.
@PlacidPenguin
Current projections
Re total blame and pity
Appear to be flawed.
I blame you for the fact that I can’t find my 64 GB OTG flash drive.
It has certain irreplaceable files which I purposely didn’t back up (even to my Pi).
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l accepts full blame
And sorrows for those drives on
The Planet Of Lost Drives.
@PlacidPenguin Oooh! Let’s try to guess what irreplaceable files you lost:
Your Bitcoin wallet?
Your secret password vault?
Your SSH private keys?
Your encryption keys?
@ELUNO @OldCatLady…you both made me smile at your replies…@F00l you too!,
@AttyVette
@f00l takes the blame or
Unblame for your smiles. Which word
Is the correct word?
@f00l I hereby unblame your blame…
@f00l btw I don’t know which is the correct word- blame or unblame…“that is the question” ( little part of a Shakespeare quote thrown in for good measure)
@AttyVette
@f00l is happy to
Get Shakespeare. Nobody liked
@f00l’s try at lit quotes.
Some Tuesdays are superior to other Tuesdays
@f00l
I appreciate that you bought me lunch, but I have never eaten avocado in my life.
@PlacidPenguin you are missing a great taste ! I eat them plain sometimes… but then again, I was born in Southern part of Texas and lived in the valley at one time They say avacados are high in healthy fats so try one out!
@f00l
/image two for tuesday
/image two tacos for tuesday
/image two tacocats for tuesday
@f00l Are those locally-sourced tacos?
@f00l I blame you for the fact that @narfcake’s Tacocat Tuesday catshirt (?) is weird enough to make me loose my afternoon appetite.
Or maybe it’s an unblame. I blame @f00l and @AttyVette for the uncertainty.
@compunaut If you look at the bottom, it was an April Fools thing.
@compunaut
Salsa Limòn food
Truck S Hulen and Oak Park
Tuesdays around noon.
@compunaut
Salsa Limòn has
Karaoke Saturday
Thursday TCU.
@compunaut
@narfcake
@f00l takes all the blame
For remaining confusion
Re @narfcake’s catshirts.
@AttyVette Do not try avocado ice cream. One of my housemates made it once (as in home made avocado ice cream) and it ice cream could mold in the freezer it would have. It tasted like a freshly mowed lawn smells.
The current goat might be interested in this if he’s going to continue to accept blame via haiku.
@compunaut
@f00l reads tiny print
Haiku rules whenever @f00l
Gets around to it.
Meh forum users
Don’t like it so much when @f00l
Spams with poetry
@f00l
I blame you that you think that.
That is strange thinking
I enjoy @f00l’s poetry
Unlike last two goats.
@narfcake
You could just tag them.
@oldcatlady @sammydog01
@PlacidPenguin Not very funny, ex-scapenguin
@narfcake
Stopping By Woods On
Whose woods these are I
Think I know. His house is in
The village, tho. He will …
Oops.
@compunaut
I dunno. I found it pretty funny.
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l blames @f00l that @f00l
Thinks @f00l should not post any
More @f00l poetry.
@f00l Perhaps you could just translate Robert Frost into Haiku. Or maybe The Simpsons.
@f00l
@compunaut
@PlacidPenguin
@narfcake
The formatting is important for this one. Can’t do that properly here
"Poetry"
Marianne Moore
1924 version.
I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all
this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a
high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. When they become so derivative as to become
unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something to
eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf
under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that
feels a
flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician–
nor is it valid
to discriminate against 'business documents and
school-books’; all these phenomena are important. One must
make a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
result is not poetry,
nor till the poets among us can be
’literalists of
the imagination’–above
insolence and triviality and can present
for inspection, ‘imaginary gardens with real toads in them’, shall
we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry.
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/poem/2009/06/marianne_moores_poetry.html
@narfcake
I don’t remember
writing crappy poetry
but maybe I did
@compunaut
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening.
Whose Woods these are I
Think I know. His house is in
The village tho. He
Will not see me stop-
Ping here to watch his woods fill
Up with snow. My lit-
Tle horse must think it
Queer to stop without a farm-
House near. Between the
Woods and frozen lake,
The darkest evening of the
Year. He gives his har-
Ness bells a shake to
Ask if there is some mistake.
The only other
Sound’s the sweep of ea-
Sy wind and downy flake. The
Woods are lovely, dark
And deep. But I have
Promises to keep. And miles
To go before I
Sleep. And miles to go
Before I sleep. Oops oops oops
Oops damn Robert Frost.
@sammydog01
Along with @Oldcatlady
Are not to blame here
They did their full month
Unlike mehmbers @iGnOrAnT
And @PlacidPenguin
On the brighter side
There’s still opportunities
Reelecting them!
@narfcake
@f00l wishes to Of-
Ficially approve of
This happy message.
@narfcake hey I didn’t code the circuit breaker.
And that’s your excuse?
Skipping letters, @Ignorant
Spells G O A T!
@Ignorant
You chose to abide by it.
Therefore you should have been available for blame at (eastern times) midnight, 10am, 4pm, kinda like Dr Pepper.
I blame @f00l that it was raining my entire drive back from my business trip in Virginia Beach.
@mfladd
@f00l is sure @mfladd
Spent the whole drive happily
Gloating re Brady.
@mfladd Lada Niva vs. Lada Riva.
Blame:
Was walking around without an umbrella in a combo of rain, sleet, and snow unable to find my car even with the help of Google Maps/Google Now due to the fact I didn’t want to hold my phone in weather conditions such as they were.
Unblame:
Finally found car.
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l accepts blame for
Probs finding car in miser-
Able sleet weather.
I blame you because my power went out an hour after the crazy lightning storm and I was finishing a movie. I have five minutes left.
I also blame you because I was reading a cookbook and thinking about baking cookies.
I also blame you because they updated the estimated time of completion of repairs from 10:45pm to 1:15am.
Now my cookies will have to wait. I will not be able to sleep because I’ll be thinking about the ending of that movie, and I’ll surely be sweating because Florida.
@RiotDemon
@f00l regrets loss of
Power and movie ending.
@f00l is so sorry.
@RiotDemon
@f00l regrets reading
About cookies didn’t make
Magic cookies fast.
@RiotDemon
Which movie?
@f00l
@f00l is sorry that
Asshole repairpeople will
Be rudely quite late.
@f00l is sorry re
Lack of A/C but thinks that’s
Better than snow/sleet.
@PlacidPenguin Mercy (the Netflix film, apparently there’s another film by the same name)
I didn’t really like it… But it drew me in and I wanted to know what happened. It had a couple of twists that threw me off.
@f00l at 10pm they updated the repair to be completed at 11pm, so I was hopeful. I laid down because I was hot. It was way too humid to open the windows. They didn’t end up fixing it until 1:30am.
I suppose I should unblame you because it did get fixed.
@RiotDemon
@f00l sorry fix was
Slow. At least a/c got fixed.
Hope all things are cool.
Massive blame:
So while driving in the snow, rain, and sleet, I didn’t really have any trouble… until I did.
Car started sliding. Quicklyish I regained control, but still.
@PlacidPenguin Ex-scapenguin regained control. That sounds suspiciously like an unblame.
@PlacidPenguin for someone who wouldn’t take any blame last month, you sure are going to town on @f00lgoat
@thismyusername
It’s not my fault if the @f00lish goat happens to be goat during an otherwise dull month.
Ironically, that’s the fault of @f00l
@thismyusername
And of course I didn’t take blame last month. I wasn’t the goat.
Don’t worry, @PlacidPenguin - your time will come.
I’m also picturing you as the one in the middle:
http://shirt.woot.com/offers/shiver
@narfcake
WANT!!!
Also, a bit conflicted on if you get a star or not.
Reason you should get a star - The T-shirt
Reason you shouldn’t get a star - The comment
/8ball Should @PlacidPenguin star my post?
My sources say no
(Blame @f00l.)
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l is sorry your
Car lost control on ice/snow.
So very scary.
@PlacidPenguin
Apologizes
@f00l for getting so much blame.
Very wearisome.
@narfcake
@f00l is to blame for
Uncertainty. Should your post
Get a star or not?
@f00l
Just imagine, this could have all been aimed at @jbartus. And to be honest, I was leaning towards voting for him. However, something came to my attention.
@PlacidPenguin
Would @jbartus compose
Snow and sleet haikus to your
Slippery safety?
@f00l
No. However, I think that there may have been more posts of a certain variety, and I wouldn’t have been able to tolerate that. Thus, the @f00lish goat.
@f00l
@f00l is so very
Sorry @jbartus is doomed
Miserable Goat.
@thismyusername
Fire and Ice
Robert Frost
Some say the world will
End in fire. Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted
Of desire I hold
With those who favor fire. But
If it had to per-
Ish twice, I think I
Know enough of hate to say
That, for destruction,
Ice is also great
And would suffice. Oops oops oops
Oops oops oops oops oops.
(Un)completed Hai(ku)
Haiku haiku hai-
Ku haiku haiku haiku
Haiku haiku hai-
@f00l You stole that from TT (@del), didn’t ya?
http://shirt.woot.com/offers/haiku
And while were at it with TT haiku shirts …
http://shirt.woot.com/offers/12345-haiku
@narfcake
Wow. Nope. No stealing. Just the intrinsic worth of 4 am thinking.
Apologies to the originator - @del or whomever. Tho 'tis a fairly obvious joke.
@f00l is guilty of
Derivative redundant
Sad little ideas.
@f00l Saw another form of syllabic poetry you may want to try when haiku ends in ‘oops’. It goes:
Two syllables
then four
then six
then eight
and ends (dramatically) with another two.
@compunaut
@f00l takes blame that you
Do not like “oops” so much. Cause
@f00l likes “oops” ok.
Sort of on-topic for the 75th Anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Harbor
Audible Daily Deal
Grunt
by Mary Roach
$2.95
Good till midnight Pacific Time
Bestselling author Mary Roach explores the science of keeping human beings intact, awake, sane, uninfected, and uninfested in the bizarre and extreme circumstances of war.
Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier’s most challenging adversaries - panic, exhaustion, heat, noise - and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them. Mary Roach dodges hostile fire with the U.S. Marine Corps Paintball Team as part of a study on hearing loss and survivability in combat. She visits the fashion design studio of U.S. Army Natick Labs and learns why a zipper is a problem for a sniper. She visits a repurposed movie studio where amputee actors help prepare Marine Corps medics for the shock and gore of combat wounds. At Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, in east Africa, we learn how diarrhea can be a threat to national security. Roach samples caffeinated meat, sniffs an archival sample of a World War II stink bomb, and stays up all night with the crew tending the missiles on the nuclear submarine USS Tennessee. She answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks? How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit? Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks? Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you’ll never see our nation’s defenders in the same way again.
https://mobile.audible.com/pd/Nonfiction/Grunt-Audiobook/B01EGJSWUA
Busy so far to-
Day morning. Confusing stuff
IRL. Back soon.
Username posts/mentioned in this thread so far:
@f00l - 414
@PlacidPenguin - 177
@Narfcake - 87
@kidsandliz - 45
@OldCatLady - 39
@narfcake
Does that include tags, or just replies/comments?
@f00l - I blame you for the fact that @narfcake made this list.
@narfcake
Good going… Now it looks like I missed the obvious.
Of course though, I blame @f00l
@narfcake Yes but I only initiated 21 posts (22 if you count this one). The rest I can blame on you, @f00l @PlacidPenguin and etc.
@Kidsandliz
I’m innocent in this case.
@PlacidPenguin Nope you are not. Go back to the “tattle” portion of the thread. Two there. Might be more but I stopped when I had evidence of lack of innocence LOL
@Kidsandliz
That was the fault of @f00l since you didn’t comprehend me fully.
@PlacidPenguin As innocent as a cat, right?
http://www.teeturtle.com/products/purr-evil-black
@PlacidPenguin
So complicated
To catch up shame when @narfcake
Counted UIDs
@PlacidPenguin
Missing obvious
Blame for when you missed what was
Very obvious.
@Kidsandliz
Important to blame
All these posts on poor @f00l cause
Who else would you blame?
@PlacidPenguin
@kidsandliz did not
Comprehend @PlacidPenguin
Fully. All @f00l’s fault.
It’s that time of month
For the Cute of the Month shirt
That is indeed cute
No need to complain
To Ramy at all, and @f00l
Gets triple unblames
@narfcake
@f00l dances with joy
At triple unblame. All this
Blame is so heavy.
@narfcake those are penguins perhaps should have unblames for last months goat
@CaptAmehrican
Last month’s faux-goat which
Might have been a penguin just
Dumped all blame on @f00l.
@CaptAmehrican @PlacidPenguin denies being goat.
Monthly goat nominations are near the end of every month.
@narfcake
Deal with @Ignorant first.
@narfcake
Also, what’s to stop me from pulling the same stunt again?
@PlacidPenguin A third term!
@narfcake
Well played.
@PlacidPenguin What is to stop you? @shawn perhaps? I believe he thwarted another goat who turned off email notifications. (grin)
@Kidsandliz @narfcake
Are you on my side (in this case) or not? I can’t tell.
@PlacidPenguin
/image penguin side
/image penguin front side
/image penguin back side
/image penguin upside
/image penguin downside
/image penguin slides
/8ball Am I on @PlacidPenguin’s side (in this case) or not?
Concentrate and ask again
/8ball have concentrated am now asking again @PlacidPenguin
Yes
@f00l apologizes
@f00l took most of the day off.
@f00l did not mean to.
@f00l feels sorry that
Everyone who wanted fake
Leg did not get one.
https://meh.com/forum/topics/important-fuko-news
@f00l Irk ruining the office’s fun in this morning’s email made me unhappy.
@dashcloud
Does @dashcloud mean that
Daily teaser email?
@f00l’S sad that you’re sad.
@hollboll
Did the WSJ start coming yet?
(Dunno why I’m sticking this in this thread.)
Winter here too quick.
Spoze to wait till Janua-
Ry. @f00l’s toes are cold.
July and August
Are still too hot. Remember
Get Merlin to fix.
I blame @f00l for their
lackluster haiku skils which
cause many hyphens.
@jbartus
Hyphens in haikus
Are funny. @f00l proclaims so.
@f00l always speaks truth.
@f00l is mistaken.
The art of haiku is one
of poise and restraint.
@jbartus
Poise and restraint are
Possibly, perhaps, maybe, not
@f00l’s best qualities.
One month ago huge
Election. Nasty and bad.
@f00l takes all shame.
@f00l
Last month was not @f00l’s.
All blame rightly belongs to
The @PlacidPenguin.
@jbartus @f00l
Technically, that’s the fault of the 1845 Congress.
More info here. I refuse to even listen to this, and not just because I wasn’t the goat.
@PlacidPenguin not
A single thing on that page
Absolved you of blame.
@jbartus
@f00l is to blame that
@PlacidPenguin will not take
Proper assigned blame.
Fall leaves are pretty
Now cold. Hard freeze tonight. North
Sent its weather South.
@f00l Yes the leaves here are finally turning as well…
@Kidsandliz
Freezing there? You’re near the coast, right?
Silly catshirtswoot
Packed some t-shirts in a box
With some Texas air.
Good news! Nothing broke
Not that t-shirts are fragile
Unblame @f00l, I guess.
@narfcake
I blame @f00l for the fact that @narfcake got free t-shirts with his Texas air.
Oh very funny
No really, @PlacidPenguin
I did laugh out loud.
@narfcake
@f00l accepts unblame
For amazing Texas Air
Special with Catsirts.
@PlacidPenguin
@narfcake ordered Air
From Texas and got Catshirts
Too? Need Air, Catshirts!
@narfcake
Are you committed
Personally to full-fledged
Mediocrity?
Excellence sometimes
Appears in fast response. Let
There be no greatness.
Mediocrity
Is the Way Of Meh. Commit
Self to “Average”.
Nope nope nope nope nope
From mediocre dot com
Only shirts and socks
That’s insufficient
No underwear? No pants? Shoes?
Blame @f00l (and @snapster)
@narfcake
@f00l is happy that
@narfcake has amazing speed
Posting catshirt pix.
This vid is a trip capsule trip.
Tho how much does someone wanna see Mick swagger in close-up?
Anyways, @f00l is an enormous @f00l not to listen to this song often
@f00l takes the blame for being a @f00l.
"@f00l to cry"
From *Black and Blue"
1976
24 hours since the last blame.
@f00l I blame you for rare side effects from medication after mouth bone surgery that might result in me having to have further surgery. Is that a good enough blame? And I blame you I am behind in grading because of that. And I further blame you that I am sick of soft food. And that I am awake at this hour because after I bought all the fucking (that’s for the fuck count for you @carl669) required medication, including the one that I got the side effects from - that was a wasted $20, I had no money left for pain meds and ice is not cutting it. And I blame you for challenging you to accept the haiku challenge and you did. Am I done yet? No. I blame you because I have crap in the car I should have brought inside but because of where I now live going to the far end of the parking lot after dark invites encounters with undesirables and instead of being out of sight the stuff is in sight. I will blame you in the morning if I then have a broken window. Ok. I think I am done now. If you have another blame drought I am sure I can oblige you. You are welcome.
None today from me
Good thing @kidsandliz has blames
A scapegoat needs them.
@Kidsandliz
Actually I am quite sincerely sorry about just fuck near everything, esp the surgery and the pain and the meds and the side effects and oh yeah the pain and the entire life sux aspect.
@f00l is quite sorry
About terrible haikus
Inflicted on Meh.
@f00l takes the blame for
Evil dark parking lot and
Some safety issues.
@f00l sympathizes
That stuff is in sight instead
Of hidden away.
Could you, like, repost the link to the GoFundMe or something? Think it would be ok with the Meh Powers?
@Kidsandliz
@f00l forgot to take
Some blame. Soft food sux. You should punch something hard.
@f00l hopes papers to
Grade all deserve A’s or F’s.
Don’t grade on a curve.
@f00l Email me at my username at the usual yahoo
@f00l Where I work it better be all A’s if I want to keep that adjunct job.
@Kidsandliz I wish I lived near you. I’d go and get the things from your car for you. Here, have a hug from me:
@Kidsandliz
@f00l hopes you give all
Students A’s while not thinking
About it much.
Had a friend who was new hire prof at a pretty decent uni teaching a bunch of the intro calculus courses. Which are, of course, a requirement and gateway into science, pre-med, and engineering majors.
The uni had extensive tutoring and workgroup sessions available, several times a day Mon-Sat.
He graded somewhat on a curve, but would not give C’s or higher to any student who was clearly drowning on the basics.
Most of his free time - make that all of his free time plus some - was spent dealing with students who whined that he was killing their medical or engineering or science careers. Whined every day. Every test. Every homework assignment. He would grant the student a few points and sometimes slightly raise the grade if the student could demonstrate some subject mastery in an interview with him. He gave students options to do extra elementary-level calculus work and upped their grades if they did it correctly. He gave re-test options on some tests, open to all.
He wasn’t trying to be an asshole to the students. Otoh he didn’t want to lie in his grading, or pass a student into a curriculum that student simply could not handle.
The would-be science students either were usually math-competent, or they changed majors. The pre-meds whined the most. They pointed out that his grade (this is a freshman course) was killing their chances at admission to Johns Hopkins. Uh huh.
Most of the engineering students did fine, but a few claimed he was killing their great careers. He would emphasize the tutoring and workgroups. He sometimes mentioned they consider doing some algebra and trig again and then do calculus. No go, that would slow them down so he must fix it.
He had no time to tutor them himself, his free time was filled with whiners. He didn’t have the heart to ask the obvious q: how will you get thru an engineering curriculum if you can’t pass calculus?
So when the students couldn’t get their D’s transformed magically into A’s, often the parents would call. They would emphasize that they were paying his salary. Sometimes even a grandparent would call.
Several students showed up at his house begging for attention and mercy. More than one parent sent letters to his house, demanding or pleading.
The thing that made his really angry was when a few students or their parents sent letters begging or accusing about grades to his wife’s school (she knew ASL and taught at a school for the deaf).
If you can really deal out all A’s perhaps that’s not so bad.
Are you grading Uni/college or a prep type school?f
@Kidsandliz
Email sent.
@f00l reply sent
@f00l College and no I can’t really give out all A’s (I am an adjunct which translates into major job insecurity so I need to so totally color inside the lines and at the same time try not to piss off students), but if I could it would stop the whining. Amazing how many tell you the last week of classes (which this is) or just after the class is done how they need a passing grade due to: (1) their job and tuition reimbursement and they will have to sell their car (fill in the blank) if I don’t pass them, (2) financial aid, (3) their career, (4) they only ever get A’s… Well if you needed that grade then you needed to put the work in to get it. I probably spent 20 hours a week in one grad class I both hated and had trouble with to get a B… Not to mention it had been years since I had had calculus (so I spent a lot of time in the undergrad math tutoring lab - I could set up the problems, I just had forgotten anything I ever knew about how to solve the math with calculus though) and now I had to do 2 page, single spaced proofs? Seriously? On one exam I borrowed a cartoon and started the proof, forgot how to do some of the math, knew roughly how it was supposed to end so put “a miracle happens here” and then explained, in words, where I knew it was headed and how it would end. I did get part credit though. OMG I was so glad never to have to take anything even remotely related to that class ever again.
@Kidsandliz
Math is one of those areas where, in order to be proficient, it helps not to have big gaps like decades since you last did it.
I don’t remember so much even if stuff I taught or tutored but could get it back quickly I think. Only they use somewhat diff approaches now do I would have to review just to learn what the current expectations and conversational teaching lingo are.
Once you get past calculus the subject matter stabilizes. You could prob still use a textbook from 40 years ago in those courses. I could get that back just by reading a textbook, I hope.
What was the grad math course you had to take? Trying to imagine, if you are not in sciences or engineering, and had to do one course, what course? Stat or probability?
Anyway that long story wasn’t a story about calculus. It’s was a story about the prof’s sorry lot in life. Aside from the high level tenured faculty and the academic superstars, the profs have become the latest “squeeze more productivity, pay less to them and fewer bennies too” group. A University often resembles a “Walmart of the Mind”, in employment terms, so I have heard. New hire profs and adjunct profs are the uni’s version of academic cannon fodder.
My friend was heard to mutter that he couldn’t believe he had pursued a PhD in math because of truth and beauty and dedication and inspiration in order to be a college’s “flunk course garbage dump”. He enjoyed teaching the students who worked. Even those who were at sea, if they came for help in an honest way. He was shocked at the begging and manipulation, and shocked at the entitlement run amok and shocked that those students filled every day. And this at a pretty good uni. Other profs told him to get a thick skin and become less available.
Doesn’t “adjunct professor” mean you get almost no $ and have an “abuse me” sign taped to your back at all times? And your employment stability is close to nil? And they pay you in pennies because they can?
@Kidsandliz
@f00l acknowledges
That adjunct professors are
There to be kicked.
@f00l Certainly much about math is chiseled in stone. Third semester PhD stats the guy teaching that class decided to teach it using using vectors and matrix algebra - neither of which I had ever been exposed to. Found a great 1975 textbook in the old stacks in the library. Turns out he was teaching straight from that book. No one else figured that out (kept waiting for the recall on that book). I got the highest A in that class by nearly 2 percentage points, outscoring all the PhD stats students, around 80 of us in that class. They asked me, when that class was done, if I was planning to change my PhD major. I told them “Are you out of your mind? I am so relieved not to spend a zillion hours a week on homework and learning different stats programs”. I did discover one program that you could run the stats using a menu and then request it to show you the matrix algebra. Yea on that program when it came to doing the homework that had to be done using matrix algebra. Just worked backwards that way. Saved a ton of time (of course I still had to understand how to do the math and set it up for the exams but seriously time saving to work backwards from the right answer where the math was always right because the computer did it). Joke is on me though - I have had to teach stats in my department on occasion.
@f00l yeah adjunct pay sucks and hasn’t gone up in 10+ years. Job security is nill.
@Kidsandliz
Never took stats. Did take prob but did not chase it. Interests where elsewhere.
One thing has changed - lots of machine time and stuff that’s highly relevant to theoretical issues in IT and what are the presumed boundaries of the sort of knowledge that can be generated by code, given certain limits and definitions. Also a lot of stuff relevant to big data.
I never dealt with that, although I did dealt a bit with the limits of what could be articulated, and the diff limits of what could be “known”, yea or nay. Complex subject, and one of the things people find “beautiful”. I’m sure all that’s in another galaxy now from when I was messing with it.
Proving the limits of what can be expressed or created is a tricky biz. They can get that wrong. I used to love the stories about how Marvin Minsky’s Media Lab at MIT was downstairs in the basement doing by code exactly the sort of things that IT theoreticians upstairs were arguing could not be done.
I’m glad your survived your stat course. What a way to teach it. For math and physics and engineering people, sure. You want them to see the connections. But for your basic PhD candidate, that’s just a way to assume background they don’t have and to make it really hard. Like teaching stats to American students in Chinese, and saying, “Oh, by the way, this is easy if you know Chinese, so brush up on that”,
@f00l I think that 3 course stats sequence was the academic equivalent of frat hazing (not taught by my department but they sent us there on purpose - as in don’t even ask to take it in another department). The first two were taught conventionally and it was just the third semester. I was just plain lucky to find that old book - saw I typo I made- should have been 1965 textbook, not old 1975 one - dusty, I was the first one to check it out in years and years… and lucky no one thought to go hunting for pre computer stats books - which I did presuming they’d actually use this kind of math to solve the stats problems by hand back then.
Interesting what is going on in corners of universities though. At my undergrad one they were trying to measure gravity waves (sort of sad they weren’t the ones who finally successful doing it some years later but at least they were right and they exist) and we temporarily (and with permission) “swiped” several gravity wave strain gages (at several bunch of thousands of dollars each at the time - overkill to measure what we needed to measure) to measure the overtones of various rough tuned and carillon tuned tower bells for a Physics of Music senior seminar. And no, I wasn’t a physics major - that would not have been wise. I just talked my way into that class and then was in a group with engineering students who also played the carillon and pranked the campus doing interesting stunts (of which I was a tag along with those escapades). I got frustrated in Physics 101 with a lab where we were to shoot balls off a table. Mine were landing all over, so I figured out where they were supposed to land, removed all the carbon paper except from there and shot then shot them off until enough landed where they were supposed to. One should not be a STEM major if one is willing to fudge results that way LOL.
I did take a lot of science though and at one point in my life I ran a summer camp for high school science geeks at a electron beam accelerator where we did a field trip to an amusement part, made things like homemade gravity sensors to see the gravitational pull while, say, upside down on a roller coaster (and I was tasked to sit behind students and take good photos of that in action while upside down), and did physics of amusement park rides, ran a school science program there, and an outdoor school camp too - ironic. I should have taken that last class to finish a science major (that would have been biochem I did not take - OMG I hated chemistry - that is what kept me from deciding to get a PhD in human genetics - when I realized just how much chemistry you needed to take and, worse yet, actually know). But at the time I was young and dumb and didn’t.
@Kidsandliz
Human genetics looks to be fascinating. Ok I know next to nothing about science -never took a science course after HS except for math, because could get away with it.
But re genetics - perhaps a little sorry you didn’t stick that out? Chemistry, like physics, like math, like code, like lit and philosophy etc, involves “learned ways of knowing”. IE it comes naturally to some people. Most others get into it, and then if they wanna stay, they, as they study, hack how to think about it and learn it and master it. Spend a significant amount of time figuring out how to think effeciently in the terms of the subject matter as well as time spend on the stuff you have to do at the moment.
And immerse immerse immerse. What they now call “deep practice” or something. And then after a while your brain is kinda zen about it. You know how to turn that mode on in yourself. Thus can take years of course, and can be refined over decades.
And then one gets better, way better. Or so I believe. One classmate of mine had to take calculus twice and he lived at the tutoring sessions. But he would not quit. He became a successful engineer - had intended to do law. He stuck with it and then got fascinated and then got good.
But you made another choice. And I bet it’s interesting.
“Yet, knowing how way leads on to way …”
@Kidsandliz
PS. Your physics 101 stunt would have been respected by other physics students I think. How Captain Kirk got out of Starflert Academy - he “cheated” and re-coded the test.
Everyone gets stuck someplace or other. Yeah you should have worked that out, but I kinda like your “solution”.
@Shrdlu Thank you for the virtual hug.
And based on what you just did (and you know what I am referring to) I retroactively unblame you for everything you have been blamed for and absolve you from any future blame… of course I probably need a magic wand to be able to do that since you are the goat… but it is the thought that counts. Right? (Read your email)
@Kidsandliz Please tell us that your car was unscathed when you went to it this morning. Please also let us know how you’re feeling. We can’t send meds electronically (yet), but we would if we could.
@OldCatLady Haven’t been to the car yet… Stuff still hurts but that is to be expected. I’ll survive I was just feeling sorry for myself yesterday and since meh didn’t sell violins yesterday I had to whine LOL. Thanks for asking. Headed out to the car shortly. We usually have a car break in about every other week or so… Since mine is not even close to the nicest in the parking lot I am hoping they head to the nice cars first. They likely don’t realize this is hud housing and they’d get better pickings in the hospital parking lots a half a block away. Of course those parking lots have cameras and we don’t…
Today should be otherwise a good day though. A group of women chose my daughter and her little kids to be their “angel tree” (each year apparently they approach one of the angel tree organizers and have them pick out a family with multiple kids on that particular organization’s tree and my daughter and her 3 were picked!! No idea how they pick I am just thankful I had chased down how to get them on a tree, any tree, and then they were picked). They are having the party to give them the gifts in a couple of hours (most will go under the tree but they get to open a couple at the party). Hope there are a lot of diapers under that tree LOL
@Kidsandliz Yay for angel trees. I’m a big supporter, and it’s a lot more fun to shop for kids than adults. Adults need gifts too, but- . I like the party idea. You’re a good, organized grandmother who helps make sure their needs are met, and I congratulate you. It’s hard to wrap diapers, unless you get the enormous gift bags from Dollar Tree or such.
@Kidsandliz
Stop unblaming me. This instant. You have no idea how much blame I deserve. Think big. Ok. Now think bigger. Now just keep doing that. I’ll let you know when to stop.
And I will be highly po’ed if I don’t get some from you.
Apologizes
@f00l for excessive unblame.
@f00l deserves all blame.
@OldCatLady Car was unscathed. Perhaps too cold for the regulars to hang out here last night. Since the so called security guard here never leaves the building (I also have a couple of photos of him sleeping on the job too - as in on the couch) and this street is commercial no one runs off the vagrants and dumpster pickers. They dig in our dumpster and at the subway (sandwich store not public transportation) dumpster (and my parking spot is 2 spots way from the subway dumpster on “our side” of it). Usually I am careful about making sure nothing is in the car. I just forgot yesterday. And I got lucky. : )
By the way the party was a great success. The kids opened these trucks that made a heck of a lot of noise, flashing lights, etc. and they were in seventh heaven. They spent all their time playing with them (most of the stuff is going to be opened on christmas). Made me tear up at how nice these women were and just how much they bought - clothes, toys… I don’t even know what all since most of it was not opened at the party. It was lovely and they were so sweet. They were mostly in their 70’s and 80’s and played “pass the baby” with the 5 month old. The boys (2 and 3 ) were shy at first but once they opened the trucks they had a blast and warmed up to everyone. It was really nice.
@f00l Well now I can blame you for my head exploding for thinking big and bigger and even bigger… You happy now?
@Kidsandliz
@f00l is oh so very
happy. Keep thinking bigger.
Bigger. Deserve blame.
Fuck everyone @f00l
Wasted all morning on Meh.
@f00l earns all the blame.
Something was still done
Maybe not all productive
But it’s still something
Enjoy the unblames
It’s part of being the goat
When things go right, @f00l.
@narfcake
If @narfcake had a
Pix of @f00l’s life, he would
Not speak “things go right”.
Duh.
Okay, fair enough.
I blame the monthly goat @f00l
For all the unblame.
@narfcake
@f00l blames @f00l very
Messed up life of long standing.
So sad, poor poor @f00l.
@f00l
Meme is right, however this cracked me up
http://www.gofundme.com/78d3nc
Posted w with @kidsandliz’s consent.
I believe the Meh Powers gave permission in the past for this link to appear in the forums. Hope that still holds.
I know Bill Gates and Warren Buffett prob don’t hang here. I know everyone’s poor or worried about being poor. I know we all have commitments and causes of our own.
But if anyone wants to check out that link - there are prob worse ways to spend one’s time.
@f00l The site isn’t playing nice on my phone (because Windows?), but I will be revisiting. I can skip a catshirt.
@narfcake
Can you load alt browsers on your phone? Chrome or Firefox?
@f00l Nope. What I really need to do is to update to W10. It plays a lot nicer, even on my older and crappier 635 (with 512 mb ram). Hell, it can even load profile pages here!
(My cost-a-catshirt Moto E2 crashes at the idea of it. And I doubt it’d ever get the Marshmallow update here in the US, even though Motorola/Lenovo has updated it in India.)
@narfcake
I just keep staring at that sentence. It mesmerizes me.
It needs to be the tag-line of some great dystopian rock song.
Ok you said it not me. And guess what! I finally did the dive and upgraded my win8 machines to Win10 so guilty guilty guilty of being a @f00l.
My vista! machines! and - get this - my 2 win2k!!! machines!!! can sit in the closet until I get around to pulling the media and personal stuff off them.
But ha ha ha to MS cause I mostly use my phones (yes, plural, fuck it) and my chrome book which I should put Linux on but have not bothered. Google who already knows every fucking detail about me gets to keep on knowing.
Let’s see. Now who’s the mark in this setup? Hmmmm.
@f00l Psst. W10 for my phone, not my computers. I’m one of those
1%0%-ers.(I actually have updated all my Windows 8.1 computers to 10, but my Windows 7 computers remained on 7.)
@narfcake
If @f00l had a win
7 machine it would be
Still Windows 7.
@f00l blames @f00l because
Very old car needs oil
change. @f00l is so bored.
@f00l is sitting next
To someone who will break up
With her boyfriend soon.
Not told BF yet
She has been telling friend the
Details in detail.
For 1 hour and longer
What language she will use. What
BF will say back
She seems nice. But she
Is talking way too loud. Home
Voice not public place
Voice. @f00l wants not to
Know. Coltrane. @f00l wears headphones
For Ascension. Exc.
@f00l’s skin dry because
Winter. No moisturizer.
@f00l uses sunscreen.
Winter came one month
Early. Not allowed. Winter
Broke so many rules.
I blame you for the following things:
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l dislikes flurries
@f00l thinks about forever
Until box arrives.
@thismyusername
@f00l agrees those kids
Are cute and once they are seen
They cannot be unseen.
I blame you for the fact that it took 10 days for this thread to reach 500 posts.
@PlacidPenguin
Apologizes
@f00l that no activity
Happens in this thread.
@f00l had tacos for
Lunch with fresh guacamole.
Ate too much. Sleepy.
Taco Saturday?
Absolutely fine choice, @f00l.
Tacos all the time!
/image gir tacos
@narfcake
GIR!!!
Is it too much to ask for ONE show which involves altering the past which DOESN’T have a flaw in it?!?
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l suspects it is
Too much. Apologies from
@f00l are posted here.
@PlacidPenguin should
begin writing one’s own show;
blame @f00l for effort.
No blame for @f00l on
Sunday. @f00l is so happy.
Very much free time.
@f00l
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l’s weekend is now
A mess. @f00l is to blame for
All overnite snow.
@f00l is sorry for
Life snags. Screwed things up, so @f00l
Has life snags also.
@f00l has been using too many haiku,
It’s time for something new.
Haiku are fun
But now @f00l’s done
Sonnets are what @f00l must do!
@jbartus
@f00l takes all the blame
For @jbartus’ poor lame attempt
At reassignment.
Poetic meter
Is too hard. Notices of
All blame acceptance
Are able to be
Composed during short seconds.
Just length of red light.
@f00l I blame you for texting while driving a car - even if you are at a red light.
@f00l had better get right on it
and compose a wondrous sonnet.
On this I’m firm
Or a @f00l’s second term
Will be my mission doggone it!
@Kidsandliz
Touch phone only while
Foot is on brake and car is
Completely at rest.
@jbartus
Sigh. @f00l has to start
Practicing the iambic
Of pentameter.
It’s time to switch it up, I mean
You can’t get stuck on the iamb scene
It takes too much attention
Time for an intervention-
Now be sensible,
No rhyme scheme is indispensable-
Mehsters, change out your voices
You keep out of trouble and you double your choices.
Now don’t get all fraught
Cause you are not throwing away your shot.
@OldCatLady
@f00l is humbled with gratitude.
@f00l we are still waiting for your sonnet
when can we expect you to get on it?
We’ve all been wasting away
It’s been well over a day
Are you going to write one? Doggone it!
@jbartus
@OthersCruelAndEvil
There appeared once a great @f00l from Texas
Who was tasked with a sonnet infectious
To @f00l’s enormous shame
The iambic did aim
And pentametered @f00l in the plexus!
@f00l quit trying to lay it on thick,
We know that you posted a limerick.
A sonnet is longer
With poetry stronger
Your evasiveness is making us sick!
@jbartus
If evasiveness causes great nausea
Does that mean @jbartus will pause, yeah?
Will he stop to be sick
And then upload the pic?
Because that seems a most worthy cause, ya!
@f00l to this I say nyet
And await the sonnet you’ll beget.
I suspect you’re quite the poet
Though you obviously don’t know it
And so I will continue to abet.
Something for the season:
The Texas Law Hawk’s Christmas Message
No blame for me! How
Very sweet Tuesday is. Might
Post some poetry.
@f00l
For the last couple of days, I’ve had either a sore or a cut somewhere in my mouth.
Moving my tongue hurts (though not as much as in the beginning).
Since I dunno where in my mouth it is, I don’t need where to keep my tongue away from.
I blame you for the following related facts:
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l feels concern
About sore mouth and lack of
Knowledge. Please take care.
@PlacidPenguin I hope you didn’t eat a fish hook
@PlacidPenguin Rinse thoroughly with mouthwash. That ought to light up the sore spot in a hurry. You’re welcome.
@OldCatLady
Thank you.
Forgot to punch the Meh yesterday.
Streak is down to 1.
Yea! Unblame self.
@f00l I lost my 529 day streak in November. I had a sad.
@Thumperchick
I’ll celebrate for both of us. I know it hurts the first few times.
Then freedom!
@f00l
I forgot to post this earlier this month… better late than never and it is @f00l’s fault I forgot too!!
@Kidsandliz
@f00l accepts all known
Blame for snarky Dilbert strip.
It feels aimed at @f00l.
@Kidsandliz
Hah.
@f00l! I found a new game for you (and future goats):
Goat Simulator. App is now free.
@compunaut
Looks like a great game for practicing CEO on how they behave toward other mehtizens.
@f00l humbly thanks you.
@f00l (cc: @PlacidPenguin) I just saw your pings. I blame you that I will not even open the Random and Useless thread because of load times. That thread scares the shit out of me! So yes, I am into putting to sleep and starting another if this is what people would like.
@mfladd @PlacidPenguin wants to know if you took a slip of paper to Disney with you with their name on it.
Miss you!
P.S. - 202!
@mfladd @f00l
I have only opened that thread a cartoon handful of times myself (in other words, 4 times).
@jbartus @mfladd Except the name was different back then, eh?
@mfladd also, have you seen this?
@compunaut the name of Disney? O_o
@compunaut
@jbartus YES!!! Fucking Goodell.
@mfladd and yet we’re ridiculed for claiming that there’s a double standard.
@mfladd
Yes @mfladd that would be most pleasant that @f00l could open the thread again.
@PlacidPenguin
@mfladd
@compunaut
@jbartus
@f00l humbly takes all
Blame that Goodell and Brady
Still have assigned jobs.
(For the haters etc.)
Also blame they still exist on earth
For all not caring.
@f00l takes all blame for
Football madness that is so
Inescapable.
A blame for @f00l for forgetting to post a Wednesday kitty in the cat thread, but catshirtswoot has a SW catshirt today, so have a double unblame instead.
http://shirt.woot.com/offers/roar-one
@narfcake
@f00l regrets the temp
Absence of Wednesday cat
Go ahead and post.
I blame you for the fact that I need a certain kind of gif within 9 days, but I can’t find a good one, and I’m too lazy to make it myself.
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l regrets lack of
Infinite time universe
Needs to conjure gif.
@f00l
It’s not just that. My gif skills are worse then mediocre.
@PlacidPenguin
/giphy worse than mediocre gif
@PlacidPenguin
The ways of giphy
Are mysterious to @f00l
Consult YouTube now.
@f00l
It’s the internet
Fifteen percent of traffic
Is cat related
And with that said, @f00l
Shirt woot has too few catshirts
Less than ten percent.
@narfcake
Can the great @narkcake,
Shirt-wizard extraordinaire,
Find perfect @f00l-shirt?
Depending on “extraordinaire” pronunciation.
PS like black or dark colors.
Most my shirts are from
Shirt.woot and TeeTurtle
They counter my work
There’s some overlap
For both in terms of designs
But still differences
So anyways, @f00l:
What are your likes and dislikes
In your shirt choices?
@narfcake
Like catshirts. Dogshirts. And poetryshirts. And fan-shirts (SW etc) and science and lit-shirts. And IT/logic shirts. And culture-shirts. And funny/ironic/sarcastic-punny shirts. But own some of all.
But am seeking a @f00l-shirt. For a @f00l. (Variable spelling of @f00l is ok.)
@f00l regrets events
Made Wednesday so busy.
Have a Ted Hughes poem.
THE THOUGHT-FOX
I imagine this midnight moment’s forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock’s loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.
Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:
Cold, delicately as the dark snow,
A fox’s nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now
Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come
Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business
Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.
from New Selected Poems 1957- 1994 (Faber, 1995)
@thismyusername
@thismyusername
Well ok. That’s some hat.
@f00l accepts blame for
All cute hats. @f00l avoids blame
For all non-cute hats.
@PlacidPenguin
That looks like lamb not goat if it’s NYC.
Still, staying clear of you.
Had to go somewhere. Got the farthest spot in the farthest away lot in the parking lot area. Had to walk a lot extra.
Normally wouldn’t be an issue, but it’s cold outside.
@PlacidPenguin Cold? You’re a flippin’ penguin!
(I might have said ‘fucking penguin’ but don’t know you well enough)
/giphy flippin’ penguin
@compunaut @PlacidPenguin is the one in the middle:
http://shirt.woot.com/offers/shiver
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l is deeply sad
About your long walk and your
Exposure to cold.
@narfcake @f00l
Expecting snow tonight. Good thing I don’t drive over the weekend. 2-4 inches expected overnight, though thankfully it’ll change to rain.
@PlacidPenguin It’s also a good thing that penguins can fly instead.
@narfcake
Don’t exactly like baby blue t-shirts.
Happy Feet 2 was on last night. Thankfully I missed it. The premise of a flying penguin is ridiculous. No wonder that movie studio closed.
@PlacidPenguin This better?
http://shirt.woot.com/offers/travel-plans
@narfcake
Yes.
@f00l takes blame for so
Much cold weather in many
Different places.
Approaching rumored location of rebel safe zone.
Initiating radio silence.
@f00l
@compunaut
Message received. Mission engaged.
@f00l
Recommend Omni IMAX Dome at museum for this film if it fits for your family.
Beware, parking garage is $10 per car. No real alternatives unless you live close enough to walk. The garage takes plastic tho.
@f00l I always park in the neighborhood across the street (E of Montgomery) when we go to FWMSaH, then walk over. Older homes, small or no garages - lots of on-street parking available.
$$ saved can be spent @ DQ
@compunaut
Someone told me the neighborhood had managed to make it illegal to park on the streets over there near the WR Complex.
Guess that was wishful thinking. Good to know, thx.
@compunaut Oops – Must park West of Montgomery. Museum complex is E of Montgomery. Damn goat
@compunaut
@f00l is sorry that
@compunaut mixed up E and
W. @f00l understands.
As a kid I was in the Grand Entry at the rodeo a few times. I know what you meant.
@f00l Might be more complicated (and crowded) during Stock Show, but it hasn’t been that long since we did it. Locals would have be given permits (like Chicago around Wrigley) and violations would have to be enforced. Complicated, costly, more losers than winners.
Just don’t block anybody’s driveway
@compunaut
The stock show involved horse trailers so there were special rules and special parking and shuttles to off-site and all that. And you had to be there 3-6 hours early and since in Jan or Feb was usually really really cold and you had to be in your club outfit so coats were problematic unless you had someone to hand them to.
Still really fun.
@f00l it’s 2 degrees outside right now. That’s TWO. Before wind chill.
It’s very windy. Call it a minimum of 20 degrees of wind chill.
This is your fault.
@jbartus
@f00l is very sad
That @jbartus the Pats fan
Is suffering cold.
@f00l sometimes it’s hard not to hate you.
@jbartus
@f00l is the third most harmless mehmber.
@PlacidPenguin
Who are the other
Two harmless members, @f00l would
Perhaps wonder of?
@f00l
@f00l is truly quite
Sorry re cold. @f00l must tease
Every so often.
@jbartus It’s 73 here. Sunday will be 83. A/C is on. Hi there!
@OldCatLady weren’t you just bitching about it being 33 and needing socks for your sandals?
P.S. - Enjoy that electric bill!
@jbartus
@OldCatLady
Enjoy the electric bill when it’s 83 F in December in Florida?
Sure. Along with enjoying the gardening. And the shelling on the beach. And the fruit on the tree. And wearing sandals a lot.
And the softball/golf/tennis/walking/running/sailing/swimming/sunsets and a bunch of other stuff.
Florida Dec-March Rocks.
@jbartus Sometimes you get what you deserve
@f00l I get to go skiing so hah!
@jbartus
Bum knee. Can’t ski w/out surgery 1st.
@f00l that sucks. Will think of you while tearing up the slopes, promise!
@jbartus You sound like my cousins in NW Ohio. I get no sympathy when I call to complain. ‘Oh, shut up!’ is what I get. Then they threaten to come visit.
@OldCatLady is that an invitation?
@OldCatLady That is where I grew up. Snow shovel in one hand and Franklin’s ice cream cone in the other… Do not miss snow shoveling. Do miss skiing and sledding. Do not miss no sunshine. Do miss beautiful autumns.
@Kidsandliz autumn is what I missed most when I moved to FL
Unblames:
I got $30 in Amazon gift cards from My Coke Rewards, as well as 4 coupons for free 12 packs.
My annual polar bear plush from Coke came last week.
Blames:
I pretty much depleted the balance which I had in My Coke Rewards.
I finally got a dual port USB wall recharger with one of the ports being type-c for Rapid Recharging. The problem is that it’s BIG!
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l is sad that points
Are gone and charger is so
Big and just 2 ports
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l is happy that
You have gift cards and plushie
Bear that is so cute.
@PlacidPenguin Polar bears and penguins are enemies. Does that mean you are really a goat?
@ELUNO
/image penguins and polar bears
@narfcake No wonder they don’t get along
@PlacidPenguin How have you accumulated so many My Coke Rewards points?
@compunaut it’s really not that hard to accumulate points. Every 12 pack is worth 10 points, a 20 oz gets you 3, etc. and it adds up fast.
@jbartus How does the system know what’s purchased? Enter a label code online? Ask Google or the NSA? Some other method?
@compunaut
I think whatever you buy has a unique code. Try looking on the packaging or under the bottle caps.
@f00l @compunaut exactly. For 12 packs it’s on the flap you pull off to dispense the cans. On 20 oz, 1L and 2L bottles, the code is under the cap. On 12-packs it’s inside the flap/door thingy you rip off to dispense cans. On shrink-wrapped cases it’s inside the shrink wrap on the bottom of the box.
@jbartus Are you drinking? You’re starting to repeat yourself; might detect some slurring too
@compunaut who repeated themselves? O_o
@jbartus YOU
@compunaut oh… damn…
@ELUNO
I is no goat.
@compunaut
I only have 70 now. That’s not so much.
Unblame: I’m drinking half & half Snapple.
Blame: In getting the new dual port wall recharger, I pretty much depleted the spare Amazon account of funds being saved to get Meh a nice gift (by Amazon standards)…
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l is happy that
Meh is getting a great gift.
Yes cheers for Snapple!
Is it a blame or an unblame that I’ve clicked almost 50,000 posts already?
@narfcake
@f00l sez @narfcake is
Such a slacker a clicking
Stars! Click many more!
@narfcake can I be #50,000?
@f00l Yeah, I know. I blame myself, then.
@jbartus After nominating @PlacidPenguin and @f00l the last two months?
FUCK NO!
/image nope
@narfcake hater.
Also @f00l was your fault, I sincerely thought you’d meant to nominate but were unclear about it. I blame @f00l for the fact that I cannot blame you for posting a nonsense post that got @f00l elected scapegoat!
@jbartus
@jbartus just caused
@f00l great confusion. @f00l takes
Blame for whatever.
@f00l I am blaming you for the blame @narfcake deserves for inspiring my nomination of you. I had other people I would have otherwise nominated.
@jbartus
@f00l takes all blame that
@narfcake inspired you to cause
@f00l to become Goat.
@narfcake I don’t think I have ever seen you use @carl669’s favorite word!
@mikibell I swear every once in a while; it’s usually in catshirt form, though:
https://www.threadless.com/product/6035/careless_whisker
@narfcake
Elegant @narfcake
Uses elliptical means
To say the word “FUCK”.
@f00l is to blame for
Not having posted a cat
Video. Here’s one.
/youtube crazy kitten
Not happy about the snow AT ALL.
@PlacidPenguin
Blame @f00l for snowfall
In NE US that did
Not fall in Texas
Had to buy 3 somethings for people. Horrible time keeping items in cart. Eventually I cheated and used 1 click ordering. Will fix gift card balance eventually.
Although I suppose that’s what happens when the holidays collide.
@PlacidPenguin
Wildly colliding
Go-cart holidays are all
Total fault of @f00l.
Crazy shopping carts
Badly behaved carts - all to
Be blamed on poor @f00l.
Slow day. Slow weekend. Not to blame for so much?
I refuse to take the blame for the outcome of the Electoral College vote. Sorry, that one’s beyond me.
I blame you for the fact that people are having fun on Discord without me.
@PlacidPenguin
Not yet on Discount red either. I thought they were doing voice chat. Seems not so I may try it.
Why aren’t you on?
@f00l takes the blame that
@PlacidPenguin is left out
Of all Discord fun.
@PlacidPenguin How do you know we are having fun if you haven’t even shrugged the idea of being there?
@ELUNO
I assume that when I’m not around that people have fun.
Here’s another poem, about something that happened on a cold day.
The last part is written like an anthem: if you wanna skip the rest:
TL;DR the anthemic part is italicized to make it easy to spot. Warning, it’s a poem.
In Memory of W. B. Yeats
By W. H. Auden, 1907 - 1973
Written in 1939?
Published 1940
Another Time (London, New York 1940; poetry) (dedicated to Chester Kallman).
(Auden was born in England. He came to the US in 1939 with Christopher Isherwood, lifelong friend and sometime intimate; they had already decided to move to the US several years before. After war started, Auden, who had been a conscientious objector, offered to join first the British and later the American military - he was rejected for both on medical grounds. He had assisted a few people in getting out of Germany in the 1930’s, and in 1939 the looming war was no doubt much on his mind.
William Butler Yeats died on Jan 28, 1939. Auden started working in this poem almost immediately.)
I
He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.
Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.
But in the importance and noise of to-morrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the
Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly
accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his
freedom,
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
II
You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.
III
Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.
Time that is intolerant
Of the brave and innocent,
And indifferent in a week
To a beautiful physique,
Worships language and forgives
Everyone by whom it lives,
Pardons cowardice, conceit,
Lays its honors at their feet.
Time that with this strange excuse
Pardoned Kipling and his views,
And will pardon Paul Claudel,
Pardons him for writing well.
In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;
Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
I unblame you because I just received and unboxed my exchange box from @mikibell!
@ELUNO
@f00l accepts unblame
Praises @mikibell to the
Skies! How generous!
Blame: In the past week, I haven’t found any good shirts in thrift stores. The mutant Anvils do not count; I said good.
Unblame: I’ve been eyeing a stud welder so I can pull the dents out of the side of my truck. Normally on sale, it’s around $100. Marked down in the AS-IS section at my local store, $70. Manager has a 50% off sign out? Kick ass! You’re a great scapegoat, @f00l! Have 60 unblames!
(I’ve tested it out on a piece of scrap metal already; it works.)
@narfcake
@f00l appreciates
Unblames since Electoral
College vote today.
Blame. The Electoral College vote is in. We are so screwed.
@OldCatLady Shouldn’t you be blaming last month’s goat too?
@narfcake That wasn’t official. This is.
@narfcake
There was no goat last month.
@OldCatLady
@narfcake
@PlacidPenguin
See post
https://meh.com/forum/topics/december-blame-thread#58586db50649180a08f4f3a0
To quote the relevant portion:
Unfortunately, I lack any means to “make it better” either.
@thumperchick You cheated again and locked the no last one to post here is the winner NO moderator zone thread right after @f00l’s post so @f00l would win! And for that I blame @f00l @shawn you need to unlock that threat please.
@Kidsandliz The original thread creator asked me to lock it. I simply clicked the link from my email, hit the home button to take me to the top of the thread and hit lock. Didn’t even see who won until after the lock. Calling me a cheater is just rude. Don’t be a sore loser.
@Thumperchick You didn’t post all that at the bottom of the thread. You locked it the same number of minutes ago as the final post… from the outside it would looked rigged…especially since you had played that joke on the first thread of locking right after posting and the top of the new thread whomever started it called you a cheater for locking it (that was what I was referring to). Not being a sore loser - left to its own devices there never would have been a loser…or a winner… we all knew that.
@f00l I just noticed at the top of the locked thread is that you are supposed to be starting the new one to pick up where that one left off… so enjoy your winning while you can : )
@Kidsandliz
@Thumperchick
@kidsandliz
First, I got the last post in the last Deals.Woot.com thread, and then I got the last post in the NeverEnding Thread on Meh?
What do I win?
Do I Win? I guess I win for longer than 20 seconds, huh? It’s only right that the Goat should win. I possess a little innate virtue.
I swears I do. I swears on The Precious.
@Kidsandliz
@f00l takes all blame for
Win in NeverEnding Thread.
Sorry! (we snickers)
@f00l Can’t be a never ending thread - it ended LOL
@f00l make the next thread.
@thismyusername
You’re darlin’. I was planning to support @jbartus for January 2017 Goat. Hmmm.
Have you been Goated? If you can propose me for more than one month as Goat, then whether you’ve been Goated yet or not is irrelevant.
Hmmmm.
@f00l
@thismyusername was already goat.
Ironically, it was January 2016.
@PlacidPenguin
If @thismyusername nominates me as Goat In Perpetuity, I might have to return the favor.
@f00l @thismyusername
As long as I’m kept out of it.
@PlacidPenguin
You might be kept out of it … for now.
Apologizes
@f00l for any unpleasant
Insinuation.
@f00l naw it was just a picture, no permagoat implications intended.
@thismyusername
@f00l unblames self for
Any blame @f00l may have tossed
Inadvertently.
Misunderstandings
Happen. No PermaGoat! Yeah!
@f00l will be free soon!!
@ELUNO
@f00l thinks this is about
NeverEnding Thread that Stopped?
Surprised! Wow, @f00l won!
@f00l did not collude.
Three cubed is a clever count
Of angry faces.
@ELUNO New one has been started. Go post your heart out there. With a little luck I posted before you did LOL
@Kidsandliz
Ha ha go see.
@Kidsandliz Not touching that thread with a 60-foot pole…
@ELUNO
Aw come play. We wancha to come play.
/giphy pout
Never!
@f00l me once, shame on you.
@f00l me twice, shame on me!
@ELUNO I can offer you a shorter or longer pole if that is what it will take…
@ELUNO
How did I @f00l you? I had no idea @Thumperchick would lock the thread!
@f00l is sorry that
You didn’t know thread would be
Locked. Nobody knew.
@f00l It is my civic duty to blame our Christmas goat.
@ELUNO
@f00l is to blame for
@thumperchick locking the thread.
Now come out and play.
Already.
@f00l now formally
Apologizes for a
Really sucky year.
@f00l
My year has SUCKED!
@mfladd
@f00l takes all blame cause
2016 sucked for so
Many people here.
I blame you for the fact that this thread doesn’t even have 700 posts yet.
@PlacidPenguin
A scarcity of comments is sad
Would prefer everybody be glad
@f00l is way beyond lame
But will take all blame
@f00l strives, but is no Galahad.
@f00l
@PlacidPenguin
Now we cross swords to determine
Who has virtue and who has vermin
But why bother to fight
I can fling vermin right
In his face and onto his ermine.
@f00l
Did you understand the reference I made?
Hint: The Librarians.
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l had never heard of The Librarians
@f00l did not mean to side with contrarians.
But now in a pinch,
@f00l’s sure it’s a cinch
And will struggle against all barbarians.
Post 700
/giphy 700
@f00l
I blame you for the fact that you never heard of The Librarians until now.
3 movies and a TV show.
@PlacidPenguin
Illiterate is
@f00l in the ways of modern
Media, mostly.
I blame you for the fact that I almost bought today’s item.
@PlacidPenguin
Today’s item is
Perhaps too costly? Purchase
Tomorrow’s item.
I blame you for the fact that I still haven’t found a satisfactory birthday present for @Barney.
I mean I found stuff, but the ratio of purple to non-purple isn’t good enough. The stuff I found have too much non-purple.
Which reminds me…
@Barney - Did you hear that they’re making a reboot of Barney and friends?
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l seeks purple for those birthdays
That @Barney combines with holidays
@f00l is searching so hard
For pure purple unmarred
Red and green might as well be mere grays.
UNBLAMES, @f00l. UNBLAMES!
Boss wants to leave. We all go home early.
@narfcake
Those unblames are a delight
You get to leave early tonite
And so does the @f00l
Isn’t it cool?
Tonite’s stars be ever so bright!
@f00l is sorry that
Carrie Fisher had a heart
Attack. Please get well!
I blame you for two things:
1.CyanogenMod nightlies are being stopped.
2.Most mehmbers don’t know what those are.
3.That I started referring to my menorah as my Meh-norah.
@PlacidPenguin The forums are already dead folks tell me.
Some details leading up to this:
http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/12/01/steve-kondik-blames-kirt-mcmaster-for-cyanogen-incs-failure-cyanogenmod-to-reorganize-and-regroup/#2
https://cyngn.com/blog/cyanogen-services-shutting-down (which is the Cyanogen Inc company, not the CyanogenMod group).
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l hopes that nightlies
Of cyanogenmod will
Be replaced quickly.
Will something better
Come along soon? @f00l hopes
This is what happens.
@dashcloud
1.Which forums?
2.I’ve been following the whole fiasco with interest since it started. Of course, with interest rates being what they are…
Nah, I kid. It’s more like:
@f00l As @PlacidPenguin said, CyanogenMod is shifting to the new name Lineage and re-tooling itself.
Old nightlies should still be available now, but eventually they’ll disappear when the hosting does.
@dashcloud
When I had my Nexus S, I was all for ROM’ing.
Then came my S3 and I had no choice but to ROM (or at the very least, root).
When I had my Nexus 5, I only reluctant rooted, although near the end, a great app came out which allowed me to keep Systemless Root, but flash the monthly security patches.
Now, I’m holding back. Less reason for me to root now, especially because one of my biggest reasons to root has sort of been incorporated into Android.
Although I’m still a supporter of the rooting community.
@PlacidPenguin
What was the reason to root that got incorporated?
Should I go ahead and put Nougat on my Nexus 6 or just wait? The last update got me to 6.01 something and google play stopped crashing. So it’s fine to use.
Don’t wanna wipe and have to reinstall stuff though. Want it as upgrade.
ps see woot
@f00l
Well everyone who roots has a different of reasons to do so.
As I thought, the Nexus 6 has yet to get 7.1.1, though it did get 7.0.
Why would you have to wipe stuff? Generally after an OTA, you don’t have to wipe, although some people suggest it to remove possible side effects.
Haven’t seen reports on how Nougat is treating the phone post update though.
Funny story unrelated to your questions: The build date of the final dev preview for 7.1.1 has a later build date than the stable 7.1.1 build. So, any attempt to update from dev preview to stable would fail. I had to wait until they issued a new stable version so that I could update from dev preview to stable without either erasing my phone, or waiting until January.
PS. I saw. It’s up to you in the end. After all, you’re an independent person who has the ability to think and to act on his own thoughts.
@PlacidPenguin
Do I have to have rooted the Nexus first to get nougat early?
I did root some of my Samsung phones back when google fucked up micro Sd card access. Never put an alt rom on one tho. Stopped buying Samsung phones when they made themselves inferior to Nexus.
My uprooted Nexus 6 shows up to date on updates. Any idea when Google starts pushing out to everyone? Is this phone a bitch to root, or easy?
@f00l
Hmmm… The Nexus 6 started getting it in October.
I suppose you could use a PC and flash the OTA (as long as you use the OTA, you wouldn’t lose anything), or you could sign up for the beta and see where that gets you.
As a rule, Nexus devices are easy to root.
I mean, there are some programs which would do it for you, but I prefer to do it manually. Although then you’d lose everything. Well, technically, you’d lose everything upon unlocking bootloader.
@PlacidPenguin
I do? When did that skill get installed?
@f00l
Whoops, wrong instruction manual. Nvm.
@dashcloud
Also, an ex-employee from Cyanogen released a comment on Reddit advising people to disable OTAs for various reasons combined.
So little blame lately.
Guess it’s time for another poem.
This one is kinda long, but quite readable. Comes in 10 pieces, most of which aren’t so very long.
The poet wrote the poem for a daughter he no longer lived with.
@f00l
Heart’s Needle
Published 1959
W. D. Snodgrass, 1926 - 2009
For Cynthia
@f00l
1
Child of my winter, born
When the new fallen soldiers froze
In Asia’s steep ravines and fouled the snows,
When I was torn
By love I could not still,
By fear that silenced my cramped mind
To that cold war where, lost, I could not find
My peace in my will,
All those days we could keep
Your mind a landscape of new snow
Where the chilled tenant-farmer finds, below,
His fields asleep
In their smooth covering, white
As quilts to warm the resting bed
Of birth or pain, spotless as paper spread
For me to write,
And thinks: Here lies my land
Unmarked by agony, the lean foot
Of the weasel tracking, the thick trapper’s boot;
And I have planned
My chances to restrain
The torments of demented summer or
Increase the deepening harvest here before
It snows again.
@f00l
2
Late April and you are three; today
We dug your garden in the yard.
To curb the damage of your play,
Strange dogs at night and the moles tunneling,
Four slender sticks of lath stand guard
Uplifting their thin string.
So you were the first to tramp it down.
And after the earth was sifted close
You brought your watering can to drown
All earth and us. But these mixed seeds are pressed
With light loam in their steadfast rows.
Child, we’ve done our best.
Someone will have to weed and spread
The young sprouts. Sprinkle them in the hour
When shadow falls across their bed.
You should try to look at them every day
Because when they come to full flower
I will be away.
@f00l
3
The child between them on the street
Comes to a puddle, lifts his feet
And hangs on their hands. They start
At the Jive weight and lurch together,
Recoil to swing him through the weather,
Stiffen and pull apart.
We read of cold war soldiers that
Never gained ground, gave none, but sat
Tight in their chill trenches.
Pain seeps up from some cavity
Through the ranked teeth in sympathy;
The whole jaw grinds and clenches
Till something somewhere has to give.
It’s better the poor soldiers live
In someone else’s hands
Than drop where helpless powers fall
On crops and barns, on towns where all
Will burn. And no man stands.
For good, they sever and divide
Their won and lost land. On each side
Prisoners are returned
Excepting a few unknown names.
The peasant plods back and reclaims
His fields that strangers burned
And nobody seems very pleased.
It’s best. Still, what must not be seized
Clenches the empty fist.
I tugged your hand, once, when I hated
Things less: a mere game dislocated
The radius of your wrist.
Love’s wishbone, child, although I’ve gone
As men must and let you be drawn
Off to appease another,
It may help that a Chinese play
Or Solomon himself might say
I am your real mother.
@f00l
4
No one can tell you why
the season will not wait;
the night I told you I
must leave, you wept a fearful rate
to stay up late.
Now that it’s turning Fall,
we go to take our walk
among municipal
flowers, to steal one off its stalk,
to try and talk.
We huff like windy giants
scattering with our breath
gray-headed dandelions;
Spring is the cold wind’s aftermath.
The poet saith.
But the asters, too, are gray,
ghost-gray. Last night’s cold
is sending on their way
petunias and dwarf marigold,
hunched sick and old.
Like nerves caught in a graph,
the morning-glory vines
frost has erased by half
still scrawl across their rigid twines.
Like broken lines
of verses I can’t make.
In its unraveling loom
we find a flower to take,
with some late buds that might still bloom,
back to your room.
Night comes and the stiff dew.
I’m told a friend’s child cried
because a cricket, who
had minstreled every night outside
her window, died.
@f00l
5
Winter again and it is snowing;
Although you are still three,
You are already growing
Strange to me.
You chatter about new playmates, sing
Strange songs; you do not know
Hey ding-a-ding-a-ding
Or where I go
Or when I sang for bedtime, Fox
Went out on a chilly night,
Before I went for walks
And did not write;
You never mind the squalls and storms
That are renewed long since;
Outside, the thick snow swarms
Into my prints
And swirls out by warehouses, sealed,
Dark cowbarns, huddled, still,
Beyond to the blank field,
The fox’s hill
Where he backtracks and sees the paw,
Gnawed off, he cannot feel;
Conceded to the jaw
Of toothed, blue steel.
@f00l
6
Easter has come around
again; the river is rising
over the thawed ground
and the banksides. When you come you bring
an egg dyed lavender.
We shout along our bank to hear
our voices returning from the hills to meet us.
We need the landscape to repeat us.
You lived on this bank first.
While nine months filled your term, we knew
how your lungs, immersed
in the womb, miraculously grew
their useless folds till
the fierce, cold air rushed in to fill
them out like bushes thick with leaves. You took your hour,
caught breath, and cried with your full lung power.
Over the stagnant bight
we see the hungry bank swallow
flaunting his free flight
still; we sink in mud to follow
the killdeer from the grass
that hides her nest. That March there was
rain; the rivers rose; you could hear killdeers flying
all night over the mudflats crying.
You bring back how the red-
winged blackbird shrieked, slapping frail wings,
diving at my head—
I saw where her tough nest, cradled, swings
in tall reeds that must sway
with the winds blowing every way.
If you recall much, you recall this place. You still
live nearby—on the opposite hill.
After the sharp windstorm
of July Fourth, all that summer
through the gentle, warm
afternoons, we heard great chain saws chirr
like iron locusts. Crews
of roughneck boys swarmed to cut loose
branches wrenched in the shattering wind, to hack free
all the torn limbs that could sap the tree.
In the debris lay
starlings, dead. Near the park’s birdrun
we surprised one day
a proud, tan-spatted, buff-brown pigeon.
In my hands she flapped so
fearfully that I let her go.
Her keeper came. And we helped snarl her in a net.
You bring things I’d as soon forget.
You raise into my head
a Fall night that I came once more
to sit on your bed;
sweat beads stood out on your arms and fore-
head and you wheezed for breath,
for help, like some child caught beneath
its comfortable wooly blankets, drowning there.
Your lungs caught and would not take the air.
Of all things, only we
have power to choose that we should die;
nothing else is free
in this world to refuse it. Yet I,
who say this, could not raise
myself from bed how many days
to the thieving world. Child, I have another wife,
another child. We try to choose our life.
@f00l
7
Here in the scuffled dust
is our ground of play.
I lift you on your swing and must
shove you away,
see you return again,
drive you off again, then
stand quiet till you come.
You, though you climb
higher, farther from me, longer,
will fall back to me stronger.
Bad penny, pendulum,
you keep my constant time
to bob in blue July
where fat goldfinches fly
over the glittering, fecund
reach of our growing lands.
Once more now, this second,
I hold you in my hands.
@f00l
8
I thumped on you the best I could
which was no use;
you would not tolerate your food
until the sweet, fresh milk was soured
with lemon juice.
That puffed you up like a fine yeast.
The first June in your yard
like some squat Nero at a feast
you sat and chewed on white, sweet clover.
That is over.
When you were old enough to walk
we went to feed
the rabbits in the park milkweed;
saw the paired monkeys, under lock,
consume each other’s salt.
Going home we watched the slow
stars follow us down Heaven’s vault.
You said, let’s catch one that comes low,
pull off its skin
and cook it for our dinner.
As absentee bread-winner,
I seldom got you such cuisine;
we ate in local restaurants
or bought what lunches we could pack
in a brown sack
with stale, dry bread to toss for ducks
on the green-scummed lagoons,
crackers for porcupine and fox,
life-savers for the footpad coons
to scour and rinse,
snatch after in their muddy pail
and stare into their paws.
When I moved next door to the jail
I learned to fry
omelettes and griddle cakes so I
could set you supper at my table.
As I built back from helplessness,
when I grew able,
the only possible answer was
you had to come here less.
This Hallowe’en you come one week.
You masquerade
as a vermilion, sleek,
fat, crosseyed fox in the parade
or, where grim jackolanterns leer,
go with your bag from door to door
foraging for treats. How queer:
when you take off your mask
my neighbors must forget and ask
whose child you are.
Of course you lose your appetite,
whine and won’t touch your plate;
as local law
I set your place on an orange crate
in your own room for days. At night
you lie asleep there on the bed
and grate your jaw.
Assuredly your father’s crimes
are visited
on you. You visit me sometimes.
The time’s up. Now our pumpkin sees
me bringing your suitcase.
He holds his grin;
the forehead shrivels, sinking in.
You break this year’s first crust of snow
off the runningboard to eat.
We manage, though for days
I crave sweets when you leave and know
they rot my teeth. Indeed our sweet
foods leave us cavities.
@f00l
9
I get numb and go in
though the dry ground will not hold
the few dry swirls of snow
and it must not be very cold.
A friend asks how you’ve been
and I don’t know
or see much right to ask.
Or what use it could be to know.
In three months since you came
the leaves have fallen and the snow;
your pictures pinned above my desk
seem much the same.
Somehow I come to find
myself upstairs in the third floor
museum’s halls,
walking to kill my time once more
among the enduring and resigned
stuffed animals,
where, through a century’s
caprice, displacement and
known treachery between
its wars, they hear some old command
and in their peaceable kingdoms freeze
to this still scene,
Nature Morte. Here
by the door, its guardian,
the patchwork dodo stands
where you and your stepsister ran
laughing and pointing. Here, last year,
you pulled my hands
and had your first, worst quarrel,
so toys were put up on your shelves.
Here in the first glass cage
the little bobcats arch themselves,
still practicing their snarl
of constant rage.
The bison, here, immense,
shoves at his calf, brow to brow,
and looks it in the eye
to see what is it thinking now.
I forced you to obedience;
I don’t know why.
Still the lean lioness
beyond them, on her jutting ledge
of shale and desert shrub,
stands watching always at the edge,
stands hard and tanned and envious
above her cub;
with horns locked in tan heather,
two great Olympian Elk stand bound,
fixed in their lasting hate
till hunger brings them both to ground.
Whom equal weakness binds together
none shall separate.
Yet separate in the ocean
of broken ice, the white bear reels
beyond the leathery groups
of scattered, drab Arctic seals
arrested here in violent motion
like Napoleon’s troops.
Our states have stood so long
At war, shaken with hate and dread,
they are paralyzed at bay;
once we were out of reach, we said,
we would grow reasonable and strong.
Some other day.
Like the cold men of Rome,
we have won costly fields to sow
in salt, our only seed.
Nothing but injury will grow.
I write you only the bitter poems
that you can’t read.
Onan who would not breed
a child to take his brother’s bread
and be his brother’s birth,
rose up and left his lawful bed,
went out and spilled his seed
in the cold earth.
I stand by the unborn,
by putty-colored children curled
in jars of alcohol,
that waken to no other world,
unchanging, where no eye shall mourn.
I see the caul
that wrapped a kitten, dead.
I see the branching, doubled throat
of a two-headed foal;
I see the hydrocephalic goat;
here is the curled and swollen head,
there, the burst skull;
skin of a limbless calf;
a horse’s foetus, mummified;
mounted and joined forever,
the Siamese twin dogs that ride
belly to belly, half and half,
that none shall sever.
I walk among the growths,
by gangrenous tissue, goiter, cysts,
by fistulas and cancers,
where the malignancy man loathes
is held suspended and persists.
And I don’t know the answers.
The window’s turning white.
The world moves like a diseased heart
packed with ice and snow.
Three months now we have been apart
less than a mile. I cannot fight
or let you go.
@f00l
10
The vicious winter finally yields
the green winter wheat;
the farmer, tired in the tired fields
he dare not leave will eat.
Once more the runs come fresh; prevailing
piglets, stout as jugs,
harry their old sow to the railing
to ease her swollen dugs
and game colts trail the herded mares
that circle the pasture courses;
our seasons bring us back once more
like merry-go-round horses.
With crocus mouths, perennial hungers,
into the park Spring comes;
we roast hot dogs on old coat hangers
and feed the swan bread crumbs,
pay our respects to the peacocks, rabbits,
and leathery Canada goose
who took, last Fall, our tame white habits
and now will not turn loose.
In full regalia, the pheasant cocks
march past their dubious hens;
the porcupine and the lean, red fox
trot around bachelor pens
and the miniature painted train
wails on its oval track:
you said, I’m going to Pennsylvania!
and waved. And you’ve come back.
If I loved you, they said, I’d leave
and find my own affairs.
Well, once again this April, we’ve
come around to the bears;
punished and cared for, behind bars,
the coons on bread and water
stretch thin black fingers after ours.
And you are still my daughter.
@f00l Thanks for posting that. It’s a visitation from a ghost of Christmas past. W.D. Snodgrass was Visiting Poet at Old Dominion University in 1978. He spoke to several writing classes and held readings. http://www.lib.odu.edu/litfest/poetryjam/index.html
@OldCatLady
@OldCatLady
I don’t know Dave Smith. I remember reading Richard Wilbur. Now I’ll have to go re-read.
I wish I still had my fav anthology. It vanished and I can’t remember the name of it. Just that the hardback cover was purple.
It was the right size book to dip into. Not so big you keep putting it off. Just enough that there’s always the right number of poems you have looked at yet.
@f00l The ODU Literary Festival is an annual event. I like this year’s poster. http://www.lib.odu.edu/litfest/
@f00l Of course you know about this. Right? https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/233-poetry
@OldCatLady
Re Goodreads
Barely go to Goodreads. In part because of the asshole author/reader flake was s of f the past. And now mostly because the commentary doesn’t come close to what you can find on Amazon and elsewhere.
Perhaps in specialized areas that don’t attract the “Team Cute Fantasy Guy” readers, it gets better. (Nothing against those readers, just don’t usually wanna take time to see what they have to say.).
Will take a look.
So …
Yesterday a lost plane over the Black Sea.
Today a bad earthquake in Chile and possible tsunami there and elsewhere.
@f00l feels very bad about some very bad stuff.
/8ball I still haven’t bought today’s shirt. Is that normal?
Very doubtful
/8ball Should I?
As I see it, yes
/8ball Do I blame @f00l for this behavior?
Yes
/8ball Do I unblame @f00l instead?
Better not tell you now
@narfcake
Today’s shirt.woot is
Either buy or not buy. Up
To your preference.
I am wearing my GrumpyCat Xmas Shirt.
/8ball Amirite?
It is decidedly so
/8ball Does @narfcake need more woot shirts?
Without a doubt
The Red Wheelbarrow
William Carlos Williams, 1883 - 1963
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
Published in
Spring and All
1923
@f00l is no doubt to
Blame. Amazon’s digital
Media sales.
Today Amazon has some pretty decent NYT bestsellers in sale today, thru 11:59pm Pacific Time.
Fiction and non-fiction. Range of genres and topics. Since Amazon does. Not allow third party site-scraping of Kindle pricing, I can’t tell you what the prices of these books were yesterday. However, the sales prices of Daily Deals books seem to usually be pretty good.
Some of the 30+ titles on sale today:
The Color Purple (Alice Walker)
The Accidental Tourist (Ann Tyler)
A Night To Remember (Walter Lord)
Spam Nation (Brian Krebs)
Business Adventures (John Brooks)
Tribe (Sebastian Junger)
The Fifties (David Halberstam)
Why Not Me? (Mindy Khaling)
Gone to Soldiers (Marge Piercy)
https://www.amazon.com/b/ref=lp_6165845011_gbps_tit_s-3_bb19_ccb88e77?rh=i%3Adigital-text%2Cn%3A6165845011%2Cn%3A6165845011&ie=UTF8&smid=A6OCI3UNMG95Z&node=6165845011&;=
The full list of all Kindle books whose “on sale” status is currently being promoted on Amazon is here:
https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-eBooks/b?ie=UTF8&node=154606011
Some of these books are also on sale at Barnes and Nobles’ nook e-book store:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/mobile/b/special-nook-daily-find/_/N-1hda?Nrpp=20&page=1
The B&B special prosecutor gong may end at midnight Eastern.
Slickdeals.net usually has some decent quality (as opposed to junk) free books listed each day. Go to SD and search for “Kindle” to find them.
@f00l
Seems that Amazon is promoting this week as “Digital Deals Week”
Categories include
Software
Video Games
Apps and Games
Kindle Books
Audible
Movies and TV
Subscriptions
Digital Music
And “Digital Day”
They seem to be running stuff every day for this sale, but
“Digital Day” (Fri, Dec 30, 2016 from midnight to midnight, Pacific Time,
seems to be the day of their biggest push.
To see what they’re offering each day, go to:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?ref_=sv_gb_5&pldnSite=1&node=3059207011&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=ur2&tag=iphone0dce-20&linkId=OMBRYAX56M45VB35
@f00l
The joys of autocorrect
This intended to refer to B&N special e-book pricing.
No prosecutors.
In A Station Of The Metro
By Ezra Pound
Composed 1912 in Paris, France
Published in Poetry Magazine, 1913.
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright–
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.
The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done–
“It’s very rude of him,” she said,
“To come and spoil the fun!”
The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying overhead–
There were no birds to fly.
The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
"If this were only cleared away,"
They said, “it would be grand!”
“If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose,” the Walrus said,
“That they could get it clear?”
“I doubt it,” said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.
"O Oysters, come and walk with us!"
The Walrus did beseech.
“A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each.”
The eldest Oyster looked at him,
But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head–
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.
But four young Oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat–
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn’t any feet.
Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more–
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore.
The Walrus and the Carpenter
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood
And waited in a row.
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”
“But wait a bit,” the Oysters cried,
“Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!”
“No hurry!” said the Carpenter.
They thanked him much for that.
“A loaf of bread,” the Walrus said,
“Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed–
Now if you’re ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed.”
“But not on us!” the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue.
“After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!”
“The night is fine,” the Walrus said.
"Do you admire the view?
"It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!“
The Carpenter said nothing but
"Cut us another slice:
I wish you were not quite so deaf–
I’ve had to ask you twice!”
“It seems a shame,” the Walrus said,
"To play them such a trick,
After we’ve brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!“
The Carpenter said nothing but
"The butter’s spread too thick!”
“I weep for you,” the Walrus said:
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.
“O Oysters,” said the Carpenter,
"You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none–
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d eaten every one.
@PlacidPenguin
One of my favs.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabbages_and_Kings_(literature)
@PlacidPenguin
JABBERWOCKY
Lewis Carroll
(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought –
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/03/sniglets-and-slithy-toves/304756/
Sniglets and Slithy Toves
The Atlantic’s “Ms. Grammar”
(aka Barbara Wallraff) talks about wordplay, recreational word coining, and her new book, Word Fugitives.
2016 has
Been a year for much major
Really awful shit.
@f00l closes eyes when
@f00l thinks about it all. Not
Carrie Fisher! No!
Carrie, we wanted
You to stay. To get well. Hey,
We’re gonna miss you.
@f00l
Honestly, what a day/month/year. Not the one I’d hoped for.
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost, 1874 - 1963
Written and published 1923
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
About the poem below:
Quoted from:
https://www.google.com/amp/genius.com/amp/Ts-eliot-the-triumph-of-bullshit-annotated#amph=1
(Google AMP link)
According to some source somewhere that I now can’t find, the poem is believed to have been written sometime between 1910 and 1917.
The Triumph of Bullshit
Ladies, on whom my attentions have waited
If you consider my merits are small
Etiolated, alembicated,
Orotund, tasteless, fantastical,
Monotonous, crotchety, constipated,
Impotent galamatias
Affected, possibly imitated,
For Christ’s sake stick it up your ass.
Ladies, who find my intentions ridiculous
Awkward, insipid and horribly gauche
Pompous, pretentious, ineptly meticulous
Dull as the heart of an unbaked brioche
Floundering versicles freely versiculous
Often attenuate, frequently crass
Attempts at emotion that turn isiculous,
For Christ’s sake stick it up your ass.
Ladies who think me unduly vociferous
Amiable cabotin making a noise
That people may cry out “this stuff is too stiff for us”-
Ingenuous child with a box of new toys
Toy lions carnivorous, cannon fumiferous
Engines vaporous- all this will pass;
Quite innocent, -"he only wants to make shiver us."
For Christ’s sake stick it up your ass.
And when thyself with silver foot shall pass
Among the theories scattered on the grass
Take up my good intentions with the rest
And then for Christ’s sake stick them up your ass.
Another sort of poem
According to Wikipedia:
Dylan Thomas died in the year after his father’s death, during 1953 at age 39.
Do not go gentle into that good night
Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953
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.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Two new articles on Carrie Fisher from The New Yorker I found this morning
If The New Yorker thinks you’ve already freeloaded off them too much this month, clear your cookies or open these links is a different browser.
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/postscript-carrie-fisher-1956-2016
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/carrie-fishers-powerful-force?intcid=mod-latest
Today’s Google Doodle is in honor of the 250th birthday of Scottish Chemist Charles Macintosh. He invented the first commercial waterproof fabric, and the raincoat is named after him.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Charles+Macintosh+Chemist&oi=ddle&ct=charles-macintoshs-250th-birthday-5118142079565824-hp&hl=en&ddlx=1
@f00l it is said he was a thief… the actual invention belonging to James Syme. Poor James missed out on the royalties AND a google doodle!!!
I blame you that I just discovered in another thread when you do (c ) without a space it comes up as copyright
. Hey @shawn what gives with that and what is the work around besides putting in a space?
@Kidsandliz
Nice catch.
Hey @shawn, what gives with more stuff to blame on poor @f00l?
Blame - Blackout for the last hour. Still going on.
Unblame - Was watching Frequency, when they had a scene with Dot Warner, and Pinky.
@f00l
As a result of the blackout, it’s cold.
69 degrees inside.
@PlacidPenguin
Ok, since I know almost nothing of current television, what is Blackout?
The only reason I know about Animaniacs are you and @narfcake.
@f00l
Blackout - power outage
As far as you not knowing about Animaniacs until @narfcake and I came along, that’s literally your fault. And not just because you’re the goat.
@PlacidPenguin
Oh I thought Blackout was some cool new series.
@f00l is regretful
Animaniacs unknown
@f00l is so clueless.
@f00l deeply regrets
Loss of power. @f00l hope that that
Power back quickly.
@f00l
@PlacidPenguin would watch a series called Blackout, or at the very least, give it a try.
Provided it involves putting contestants in a house, and after a couple of weeks, killing the power. Meanwhile, they’d have to deal with @mfladd and @KittySprinkles roaming the house. Still undecided if the contestants should know about @mfladd and @KittySprinkles roaming the house. Also, not sure if we should put other mehmbers in the house also.
@PlacidPenguin
Would those two be allowed weapons?
This has possibilities. And possible collateral damage.
@f00l
They keep on delaying the ETA for power restoration. First it was 2 PM, now it says 4 PM.
Of course though, it’s raining, so…
And yes, I know that it’s just an estimation and doesn’t reflect reality.
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l does not like sitting still and being cold.
How widespread is it?
@f00l
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@f00l
A little over 4 hours later, power has been restored.
Troye Sivan - FOOLS
Blame: Bought someone an olive slice of pizza. It came with a free staple underneath the cheese.
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l is so sorry
About pizza with staple.
Was anyone hurt?
@f00l
No. But still.
And anyways, most people don’t like getting staples in their pizza.
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) was a lifelong lawyer and insurance executive, and one of America’s best poets.
It is said that the residents of Hartford, CT learned never to speak to him or to acknowledge or disturb him on his many long walks, or even when he walked to and from work. They came to know that he did his poetic composing in his head as he walked.
After he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1955, he was offered a faculty position in literature at Harvard. He declined, as he was also dedicated to being VP of his insurance company and had no wish to resign.
The Emperor of Ice-Cream
By Wallace Stevens
Published 1922
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month’s newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
By Wallace Stevens
Published 1917
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
Christina Aguilera & Blake Shelton - Just A Fool
a sort of cultural history of plants and drinks is the New Year’s Eve Audible Daily Deal
The Drunken Botanist
by Amy Stewart
Narrated by Coleen Marlo
10 hrs and 16 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
$3.95
PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY
Every great drink starts with a plant. Sake began with a grain of rice. Scotch emerged from barley. Gin was born from a conifer shrub when medieval physicians boiled juniper berries with wine to treat stomach pain. The Drunken Botanist uncovers the surprising botanical history and fascinating science and chemistry of over 150 plants, flowers, trees, and fruits (and even a few fungi).
Some of the most extraordinary and obscure plants have been fermented and distilled, and they each represent a unique cultural contribution to global drinking traditions and our history. Molasses was an essential ingredient of American independence when outrage over a mandate to buy British rather than French molasses for New World rum-making helped kindle the American Revolution. Captain James Cook harvested the young, green tips of spruce trees to make a vitamin C-rich beer that cured his crew of scurvy - a recipe that Jane Austen enjoyed so much that she used it as a plot point in Emma.
With over 50 drink recipes, growing tips for gardeners, and advice that carries Stewart’s trademark wit, this is the perfect listen for gardeners and cocktail aficionados alike.
Price good till midnight Pacific Time
http://www.audible.com/pd/Science-Technology/The-Drunken-Botanist-Audiobook/B00BQK4V1M/ref=a_search_c4_1_1_srTtl?qid=1483181887&sr=1-1
Some writers’ lives are as famous/notorious as their works, or more so, esp while living or shortly after their deaths. Wilde, Hemingway, Kerouac, Fitzgerald, Mailer all went thru periods where their works were viewed in the contexts of their biographicies. Mailed joked, accurately, that any review of his books would begin with a bio, and the book review would likely be at the end of the article.
And there’s Sylvia Plath.
Some of the poetry carries the risk of not being good reading for someone at current risk of clinical depression; other poems do not - if they can be seen apart from her life and death.
If I read her poetry shortly after some sort of biographical encounter, I tend to read it as a puzzle clue to her state of mind. If I read her poems at a good remove from the memoirs and bios, the poems stand more clearly apart from her life, on their own.
And again: none of the bios and memoirs are good reading for someone who is currently clinically depressed or currently at risk.
The items mentioned below are all biographical.
She wrote her own semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, beautifully written and well-reviewed, a sharp portrait of an educated young woman’s life and prospects in the 1950’s.
It was filmed in the 1970’s - I read that the film seems to be only available on DVDs that appear to have been made by transfer from a VHS tape, and looks awful. I’ve never seen it.
And it’s reportedly being filmed again, with Dakota Fanning.
An Amazon search for Sylvia Plath as a topic in the subcategory of Bios and Memoirs brings up hundreds of hits. There are standard bios and memoirs and:
about her life before marriage;
about her married years with the poet Ted Hughes;
books about her life after separating from him;
about being one of her readers;
And more.
And these don’t seem to include the writer A Alvarez’s famous memorial essay about his friendship with her, included in his book The Savage God - again, not a book to read if one is clinically depressed.
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_n_8?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=n%3A283155%2Cn%3A2%2Ck%3ASylvia+Plath&keywords=Sylvia+Plath&ie=UTF8&qid=1483187659&rnid=1000
Her unabridged journals have been published, except for the last one - which Ted Hughes destroyed, reportedly to keep their young children from reading her own version of the final and terrible depressive descent.
And there’s a movie, from a decade ago, Sylvia, starring Gwyneth Paltrow. I never saw it. There is a physical resemblance, but I never thought I could dive into the illusion “Gwyneth” would ever be “Sylvia” for an hour or two. I might have given it a shot, with another actress. Or not.
Sylvia herself comes into such sharp focus in her best poems that perhaps no actress could “be her” for me.
Who else could be believed as the creator of these poems but the poet herself?
@f00l
Winter Trees
Sylvia Plath
The wet dawn inks are doing their blue dissolve.
On their blotter of fog the trees
Seem a botanical drawing.
Memories growing, ring on ring,
A series of weddings.
Knowing neither abortions nor bitchery,
Truer than women,
They seed so effortlessly!
Tasting the winds, that are footless,
Waist-deep in history.
Full of wings, otherworldliness.
In this, they are Ledas.
O mother of leaves and sweetness
Who are these pietas?
The shadows of ringdoves chanting, but chasing nothing.
@f00l
Ariel
Sylvia Plath
Stasis in darkness.
Then the substanceless blue
Pour of tor and distances.
God’s lioness,
How one we grow,
Pivot of heels and knees! --The furrow
Splits and passes, sister to
The brown arc
Of the neck I cannot catch,
Nigger-eye
Berries cast dark
Hooks –
Black sweet blood mouthfuls,
Shadows.
Something else
Hauls me through air –
Thighs, hair;
Flakes from my heels.
White
Godiva, I unpeel –
Dead hands, dead stringencies.
And now I
Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas.
The child’s cry
Melts in the wall.
And I
Am the arrow,
The dew that flies,
Suicidal, at one with the drive
Into the red
Eye, the cauldron of morning.
@f00l
Lady Lazarus
Sylvia Plath
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it-----
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?-------
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
What a million filaments.
The Peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and foot ------
The big strip tease.
Gentleman , ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I’ve a call.
It’s easy enough to do it in a cell.
It’s easy enough to do it and stay put.
It’s the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart—
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair on my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash—
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there----
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
Another song associated with the word “fool”, from a blues master.
This one kinda sums up my feelings about 2016.
Elmore James
I Was A Fool
I blame you that the list of things my mom wants/needs done will take longer than my time here to do it.
@Kidsandliz
@f00l blames self as Goat
For being so blameable.
Guilty guilty @f00l.
@f00l is the reason
Why there are more chores than free
Time at your Mom’s place.
@f00l It isn’t more chores than free time (it is a forgone conclusion there will be little to no free time as mom needs a lot of help - it is more chores than time at all, which is also why I am on the internet far less as there are few moments to steal and no internet in her apartment (have to go to the lobby…
hum… I wonder if it is possible to sneak a repeater in or (whatever they are called) to amplify the signal in the 4th floor lobby so that it goes all the way down the hall and not just half way down the hall. If she lived in a apt closer to the lobby there would be internet in there. Not sure if you have to hard wire them with an ethernet cable or if they just pick up signals and rebroadcast them. I’d have to place it hidden in the lobby since I presume you’d have to plug them into an outlet.
@Kidsandliz
Repeaters can be a PITA to set up, depending. And someone could just walk off with it.
Is wi-fi supposed to be available where she lives? It so then you can complain about it and try to get building mgmt to deal with the prob.
You might be able to buy a really good router than can be setup as a repeater and put it in her place. You might have to replace the antennas on the router with specialized antennas that can bring in more signal.
Did this a decade ago with a netgear. have to get a router with removeable antenna or one than can take additional antennas.
This might make a good topic on its own. Pls create one. There are some serious geeks hanging out here who prob know this stuff cold.
@f00l OK. They only provide it for the lobby in each floor.
@Kidsandliz
You can get specialized routers that can pick up signals your tablet or phone would never know were there.
Create a topic.
@f00l using a laptop. Created a topic.
@Kidsandliz
You need a song to close out the month. I’m partial to ‘the Parting Glass’
@OldCatLady
That’s amazing. I did not know of them. Thanks.
@f00l That’s your own fault. Happy New Year.
One final blame (unless I think of more):
So you know how I’m disconnected from the internet on Saturdays? I would have considered today’s item, but it was sold out before I reconnected to the internet.
BLAME!
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l accepts blame for
you missing items. Perhaps
@f00l will send you some.
Ooh, just thought of another blame:
Had to go somewhere yesterday afternoon. Windshield wipers got most of the snow from the front. A patch though remained on the front. Then I was foolish and used wiper fluid.
Succeeded in making things worse.
@PlacidPenguin
@f00l offers sincere
Apology about your
Windshield and the snow.
Friends party was supposed to start at 8 meaning be there 9. She texts us that maintenance issues party can’t start till 9 which means show up at a 10 or later. I am an old foggy who layed back down and now sm having trouble deciding to get dressed up and makeup and drive into city . It is too late to start a night out for me.
@CaptAmehrican
@f00l is sorry that
Party was delayed. So much
Disappointment there.
Wait a min I thought you were v v young. Always up for a party. No?
I taste a liquor never brewed
Emily Dickinson, 1830 - 1886
I taste a liquor never brewed –
From Tankards scooped in Pearl –
Not all the Frankfort Berries
Yield such an Alcohol!
Inebriate of air – am I –
And Debauchee of Dew –
Reeling – thro’ endless summer days –
From inns of molten Blue –
When “Landlords” turn the drunken Bee
Out of the Foxglove’s door –
When Butterflies – renounce their “drams” –
I shall but drink the more!
Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats –
And Saints – to windows run –
To see the little Tippler
Leaning against the – Sun!
@f00l
More Emily
Hope Is The Thing With Feathers
‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—
And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—
I’ve heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.
@f00l
Why Do I Love" You, Sir?
“Why do I love” You, Sir?
Because—
The Wind does not require the Grass
To answer—Wherefore when He pass
She cannot keep Her place.
Because He knows—and
Do not You—
And We know not—
Enough for Us
The Wisdom it be so—
The Lightning—never asked an Eye
Wherefore it shut—when He was by—
Because He knows it cannot speak—
And reasons not contained—
—Of Talk—
There be—preferred by Daintier Folk—
The Sunrise—Sire—compelleth Me—
Because He’s Sunrise—and I see—
Therefore—Then—
I love Thee—
“This is Just to Say,”
William Carlos Williams
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
[Buffalo Bill 's]
By E. E. Cummings
Buffalo Bill ’s
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blue-eyed boy
Mister Death
Horses
Pablu Neruda
From the window I saw the horses.
I was in Berlin, in winter. The light
had no light, the sky had no heaven.
The air was white like wet bread.
And from my window a vacant arena,
bitten by the teeth of winter.
Suddenly driven out by a man,
ten horses surged through the mist.
Like waves of fire, they flared forward
and to my eyes filled the whole world,
empty till then. Perfect, ablaze,
they were like ten gods with pure white hoofs,
with manes like a dream of salt.
Their rumps were worlds and oranges.
Their color was honey, amber, fire.
Their necks were towers
cut from the stone of pride,
and behind their transparent eyes
energy raged, like a prisoner.
There, in silence, at mid-day,
in that dirty, disordered winter,
those intense horses were the blood
the rhythm, the inciting treasure of life.
I looked. I looked and was reborn:
for there, unknowing, was the fountain,
the dance of gold, heaven
and the fire that lives in beauty.
I have forgotten that dark Berlin winter.
I will not forget the light of the horses.
Morning at the Window
T. S. Eliot, 1888 - 1965
They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.
The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.
The Death of a Toad
Richard Wilbur
A toad the power mower caught,
Chewed and clipped of a leg, with a hobbling hop has got
To the garden verge, and sanctuaried him
Under the cineraria leaves, in the shade
Of the ashen and heartshaped leaves, in a dim,
Low, and a final glade.
The rare original heartsblood goes,
Spends in the earthen hide, in the folds and wizenings, flows
In the gutters of the banked and staring eyes. He lies
As still as if he would return to stone,
And soundlessly attending, dies
Toward some deep monotone,
Toward misted and ebullient seas
And cooling shores, toward lost Amphibia’s emperies.
Day dwindles, drowning and at length is gone
In the wide and antique eyes, which still appear
To watch, across the castrate lawn,
The haggard daylight steer.
The Snow Man
by Wallace Stevens
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
The Rolling Stones
Just Your Fool
Johnny Winter.
Be Careful With A Fool
B B King
I Pity the Fool
Wilson Pickett
In the Midnight Hour
Thelonius Monk
Round Midnight
Cindy Lauper
Just Your Fool
Aretha Franklin
Maybe I’m A Fool
Beatles
Midnight Special
Led Zeppelin
Midnight Moonlight
Midnight Eastern Time’s getting close
The Beatles
Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight
Happy New Year
Last night, I planned on blaming @f00l a lot for what I wouldn’t find today in thrift stores.
That won’t be happening.
Sooooo about a hundred unblames, @f00l?
@narfcake
Technically it’s been 2017 for many hours. Time zones and all.
@PlacidPenguin Still December here on the West coast. Also I wasn’t going to go so far as to give 2016 unblames for the fucked up year being over.
2017 blames to the new goat, OTOH …
@narfcake
@f00l accepts @narfcake’s
Unblames. Fabulous. Where have
You been, oh @narfcake?
@f00l Yeah, I haven’t been post whoring much recently. Apparently, if I post less and click more, my altruism score goes up.
@narfcake
I like it when you postwhore.
It’s 2017, baby!
Altruism is NOT a thing right now!
I blame you for not knowing what to do today.
@ELUNO
@f00l never knows what
To do. @f00l exists in this
State. @f00l is sorry.
Jan 01, 2017, homies.
I am in a relationship to being Goat that is equivalent to the relationship Schrodinger’s Cat has to being alive.
But it will all work itself out soon, right?
@f00l No. You haven’t suffered enough. Keep working.
@OldCatLady
@f00l is so sorry
Insufficient suffering
@f00l will make amends.
AndI still blame you even though technically you are blameless as it is the first that I ordered 4 more humidifier filters for mom yesterday and finally found the “lost” ones she had put in a “safe” place. And now it is too late to cancel the order.
@Kidsandliz
@f00l blames self about
humidifier filters
Having too many.
@f00l you now have 6 bonus unblame units. (3 blames past the 1st each with a value of 2 unblame units).
@thismyusername
Feel so relieved. Thanks.
Crossposted from the thread about @f00l’s lame contest
https://meh.com/forum/topics/f00ls-totally-lame-contest-thread#586b69c4ab69120bc0b0b41c
Quoted here because time for some blame!
Proof positive! I am a double idiot because I posted this twice!
That’s as may be, but you’re still goat, as of 0850 EST on 3 Jan 2017. Possibly balanced by the incoming goat having the 21st on their plate.
@OldCatLady
@f00l is to blame for
Still being a @f00l Goat. So
Blame that @f00lish @f00l!
Something for @OldCatLady
@f00l Gingers are the BEST.
@OldCatLady
Yeah they got something, don’t they?
Something for January 2017
Refugee (Tom Petty, live, 2012)
Where is your goat icon?! NOOOOOOOOO!!!
@ELUNO
See next post.
I’m not Goat anymore!
I’m heading for the shower, and then perhaps to some fancy place that doesn’t allow barnyard animals!