Sunday, November 3, 2019

 Well, the dad-blamed kitten is still on the Hill. Otis has been barking at him all day, and as soon as Otis leaves the yard, the kitten walks right in. That means I've had to pull Otis off him at least once and the day's not done yet.



 I'm fairly convinced now that instead of a stray, he was abandoned. He's a bit on the thin side, and he loves people. Like, he stays in your feet if you're walking but able to stay completely out of the way. He'll sit right outside the fence without moving for hours even though Otis is barking at him for hours. Seems he's just waiting for Momma or me to come out to him.

 That being said, Momma's less adverse to him hanging around this morning than she was last night. She's as soft-hearted as I am when it comes down to it. I haven't seen Bounce all day, but if the weather's nice he'll spend it all in playing in the woods. I worry that having a new cat on his hill will make Bounce decide to leave but we'll see.

 This new cat is sweet as sugar, though. I'm glad I can't come up with a name yet - it'll be something referring to how brave he is - because I'm probably going to try to get him to the ASPCA in Tupelo. They're in a new building; the last place was crowded, the cat boxes were four deep. I probably won't be able to do anything about it until Wednesday, so we'll see how it all works out.

 Okay. Like I said yesterday, I had more I wanted to write about but the Otis-kitten drama got me shook. So, we'll do that now. I'll do some News at the end, but for now let's do some housekeeping.

 I think it's time to do some shaking up of the status quo. I have blogs at three sites: Blogger, WordPress and Tumblr. I hooked into Blogger years ago, back when blogs were the Thing and moved to Tumblr when I got tired of Facebook. I understand that Tumblr has the reputation for being intended for younger folks, perhaps with hair colors that don't exist in nature, but I liked it because it was like Twitter without the at-the-time 140 character limit. Plus, it could be linked to Twitter, which kills two birds with one stone.

 However, for whatever reason, just before I went into the hospital in 2017 for my unscheduled 10-day stay, I'd gotten seriously bored with Tumblr. That was around July 4th, and remember the wingnuts having a shit fit because NPR tweeted out the Declaration Of Independence and they thought they were slamming their Blind Idiot God. It was seriously one of the funniest things I'd ever seen. Plus, most of my scattered friends are on Twitter, so I could talk to them while I was laid up.

 So I moved to Twitter, and as toxic as that site can be, I do think it helped me pull myself out of the funk I was in at the time. Beyond the basic being ground down by life, my father had passed away the year before and I wasn't dealing with it well. Since getting on Twitter, I've reinvigorated my interests in both reading and media/politics, cut the rope in New Orleans, and started writing again. So, yay, that.

 I set up the WordPress site back in March just for the hell of it and pretty much left it alone until August or so. Back in June, I started this daily diary/look at the News/stoned ruminations on Blogger before copy-pasting it onto WordPress, which has more ways to connect to other platforms. I had pretty much left Tumblr alone, but here lately I've found a use for it. It's been where I repost videos, music or otherwise, from YouTube that I want to say more about than Twitter allows, as well as links I see that don't fit into the Daily Matt and Twitter runs collected, correlated and fleshed out some

 Here, I've got these three sites and all have a use, so maybe we should do something with thm. Here's my thinking. Keep the Tumblr site as-is, for Twitter runs and YouTube videos. I think it works fine for that and I have gotten some feedback for posting songs most folks wouldn't see on Tumblr and writing about them some, because I'm good at writing about music.

 Since about a month into it, the daily diary/look at the news thing has been at least 500 words by design. I think it's good to set goals to reach and I used to write a weekly music column at that length. It was also intended to fire some sort of impulse to write fiction. In that, well... let's just say it hasn't worked. Otherwise, it's been an overall success. For one, I haven't missed a day and, for two, I've got to where I enjoy writing again, which is a good thing.

 I think I'll keep it up, but with some changes. A daily chronicle but I believe we'll drop the word count requirement, concentrating on my mood and mental state as well as what I'm reading, watching playing, etc. or what the varmints are doing. This will make the ledes more difficult, but there ya go.

 As for the WordPress site, I think we'll use that for the News. Now, I don't make any great claims to my skills as either a journalist or a news analysts, nor do necessarily consider the latter a worthwhile endeavor. However, as the Psych Dog pointed out, it is something I am passionate about and something I'm interested in.

 Now, interestingly enough, Mississippi has a couple very well-done indie news websites, but they generally concentrate on the Jackson-Gulf Coast area. Again, I'm not necessarily the guy to take care of everything north of Starkville but I do think there's something I could do, as well national news.

 However, it's not something I either want to do every day or could do every day. I think three times a week is sufficient, though, and doable. We'll see, but I think it'll be solely news/media analysis/reporting/gibbering. If the Friday News Dump happens or newsworthy over the weekend, we'll do a special addition. And I think I'll try to keep the 500 word minimum and allow myself to miss the occasional.

 So, we'll write the diary every day, the News at least three times a week and the Tumblr-YouTube thing whenever the mood/requirement hits me. Furthermore, I'm going to hold off on making the change until the first of the year. That'll give me time to organize it a little better than I have so far. It might do to start new blogs/sites to consolidate everything, but maybe not. And this way it can be eased into rather than taking a big jump. And finally, starting these on the first of the year is just done.

 Now. I know people read this, at one of the three sites. Any of y'all have comments/ideas/suggestions, I am more than happy to hear them. I still need to ask a professional writer for advice as well as think of questions to ask them, but one thing at a time. Anyhow, the email is matt7542@gmail.com. Remember, though, if you want to yap at me because you dislike my political stance, don't bother.

 Okay, the News. Honestly, this is just me being petty but I do find this funny as hell. Last night, Trump, his crew and both his chinless sons went to a big deal mixed-martial arts thing, UFC 244, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, his hometown and stomping grounds until earlier this week. When he was announced to the crowd, well... it wasn't quite the foul reception he got at the Nats game back Sunday, but there was a very healthy mix of boos and jeers in among all the noise.

 Of course, the cultists as well as both his lunkhead boys have screamed "fake news" 'cause that's all they think it takes. It's all they'll do, anyway, but don't be fooled. Trump got booed. The main way you can tell is, like at the Nats game, he had a lock on his face like someone pissed right into his Corn Flakes. You follow the guy long enough, you get to recognizing his red-assed facial expression and that's the look Trump had.

 Sure, some will say this happened in "liberal NYC", a place that's full of liberals, immigrants and other non-real Americans, and sure, the entire town has loathed the guy for decades. The general response to him relocating to Florida earlier in the week was "don't let the door hit you in the ass". And some will say that this should be his crowd.

 Indeed, a well-known MMA fighter who's also a big Trump fangirl was on the card. I don't know the usual politics of UFC fans, but I do know most professional wrestling fans are fairly conservative. Indeed, his appearances on WWE helped Trump get back on the mainstream's radar over a decade ago.

 Either way, he got plenty of very vocal disapproval from hoi palloi, because he isn't as beloved as he wants to think he is. Remember, this is the first time in his life the entirety of his Dasein has been people whose paychecks and sometimes very existence are predicated on making sure Trump's ass stays moist and he stays convinced everyone either loves him or, at least, is envious of him.

 Even his rallies, which are designed to be only for the most fervent of his fans are allowed in or it looks like they're desperate to get in while keeping out any naysayers, there is always protests. Even here in Tupelo there were protests. You know hearing people's disgust and contempt of him, that it's not just "fake news" from the "Crooked Media", that a lot of Our Fellow Americans really don't like the son of a bitch... that just has to chaff him something fierce. I don't know who's keeping his phone away from him after this, but I bet his rage when back at the White House is legendary, petulant little shit.

 Well, that's for tonight. If you have any ideas or suggestions about where to go from here. I wouldn't mind monetizing this, whatever it is - always nice to make bread doing what you dig rather than "working" - but for now, we're just concerned with having fun.

 Okay for now. Adios.