I might stay up late and do nothin' all night long.

 I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I don't use too many opinion pieces when I put together my News. Once in a very rare while, one will fit the bill for the point I'm trying to make too well but for the most part, I can find legit hard news sources covering whatever the pundit is yammering about. There's a reason for that: I really don't care for opinion writers and people who're paid pundits.

 It is sort of funny because when I first decided as a teenager that I wanted to be a journalist when I grew up, I initially wanted to be an opinion writer. It just seemed like a lot of fun to get paid to give my opinion, especially since I had so many opinions I really felt needed to be spread far and wide. There were other reasons I wanted to be a journalist - not necessarily a reporter, but a journalist and, yes, there is a difference - but that was a major one.

 I eventually got over it, partly because they'll let any dingbat who's well-connected enough write a column in The New York Times regardless of how much they've actually earned it. Used to be, a column in a major publication like that was sort of a reward for a career down in the trenches of bringing the news to the people. You had to make your bones before you got the cushy gig, and that invariably brought a little bit of wisdom regardless of your ideological stance or political leanings.

 Now any clown who's dad is a mover-and-shaker in publishing can waste space in Newsweek or The Washington Post complaining that people are being mean to them just because they suggested there's nothing wrong with gassing protestors or having "free speech zones." It's gotten worse as time has dragged on, and it was pretty horrible 20 years ago.

 So I feel it's best to ignore all of them and hold them in contempt until they prove me wrong. I acknowledge this isn't fair of me, so I won't use them in the News, especially if I happen to agree with them. Same goes for Name Journalists, particularly if they're another straight white middle-class white dude like, for example, me. I've been pruning my Twitter of those guys. They get one strike, and I'd rather hear from someone who might have an entirely different vision of the world than the one that's been sold to me as "The Way Things Should Be."

 As far as news sources, there are very few I won't use. I just don't pay attention to whoever wrote the story. I figure it's become like whoever's running sound at a club show: so long as they're doing his job, I'm not having to think about him. If I do, it's because they're screwing up. There are a few complete garbage sources, like The Washington Examiner or OAN but they rarely offer anything that can't be found somewhere else if it's worth reporting on at all.

 I think that's good for now. I needed to get that off my chest, that's all. There are some news items I do want to explore - notably the accusation on ICE doing forcible hysterectomies - but that one definitely needs to marinate a little while longer. That's my other rule: let stuff work out. I'm not getting paid for scoops.

 Hell, I'm not getting paid at all.

Hang on in there.

 Man, what a day. Have you seen the Axios interview Jonathan Swan had with Trump? Holy cow, go look at that thing. Words fail me. There is so much bad with it. His fumbling every answer about the government's COVID-19 response is sad. His dismissal of even pretending to give a shit what John Lewis represented is embarrassing. And once again sending good wishes to Ghislaine Maxwell is just mortifying. This is our president, the guy who holds the nuclear codes. That's the worst part.

 You know, this has gone beyond funny, even in a dark, absurdist sense. We have a stone moron as president, someone who doesn't give a shit about the people he represents if it makes him look bad, is undeniable racist to the point where he's willing and eager to screw over people to continue it, and he's probably wrapped up in the largest underage rape scandal in modern history that doesn't involve the Catholic Church.

 He can't even be bothered to act right, that may be what's yanking my chain most of all. All criticism just rolls off him as being either "fake news" or "presidential harassment" or just people in general being mean and jealous of him. I've sort of skipped out on today - yes, the funk is still here - so I don't know what the general reaction from the Base is, apart from their insistence that Joe Biden is in a constant dementia haze and never leaves his basement. That's their entire argument.

 I may have said it here before, but I am not so much "for Joe Biden" as I am "against Donald Trump". I don't know if it's my allegiance to H.L. Menken's dictum that the only way a reporter should look at a politician is down, my cynicism thanks to the quality of elected officials throughout my adulthood, or just the simple fact that I'm kind of a salty bastard. Regardless, I've never been able to catch that spirit some people seem to get when they get behind a candidate.

 Take this election, for example. I liked some of Bernie Sanders' and Elizabeth Warren's ideas, I liked some of the stances Cory Booker and Julián Castro had, and I liked the way Kamala Harris carried herself. I thought any of the five would make fine executive officers but shed no tears when each dropped out. In fact, apart from Bloomberg and Yang and the Starbucks guy, nobody who was a serious contender was all that bad.

 But we wound up with Joe Biden because the majority of Democratic voters felt he was the best man for the job, and the job at hand is getting Donald Trump and his slimy crew out of power. Biden's got the experience and years, but along with that comes with the normal baggage most people pretend isn't gathered by every politician ever. The 1994 Crime Bill is a stain on his record, sure, but the same people who decry that think it's not a big deal than Bernie Sanders was an avid supporter of it.

 That's politics, though, and people who complain about shit like that or pretend it's a killer don't understand how politics works. They don't understand how journalism works either, for that matter. We're not giving the Beltway Media a pass, but Swan's evisceration of Trump in the Axios interview isn't really that hard. He just kept asking follow-up questions and, more importantly, asking "why do you insist that bit of bullshit is reality?" Any journalist can do that. The reason the Beltway Media doesn't is, for the most part, because they have a vested interest in pretending the office of the Presidency isn't up for grabs to any two-bit hustler who stirs up the lizard brains of enough of the country.

 It's not all on them, though. Up to a certain point, the media - any media - is like any other business: they provide the desired service. As consumers of journalism, it's beholden to the public to not accept the very least done, and unfortunately, we have for generations. It really wasn't up until Nixon and Watergate before that Wall of Silence was shattered. Even so, we've allowed ourselves to believe They're All Crooks, The Media Does Nothing But Lie, and There's Nothing We Can Do About It.

 To do otherwise would require us as citizens to do some actual work, to do some actual thinking. Pretending that's Just The Way It Is takes the responsibility off of us and assigns it to some amorphous entity, so it goes on and on. So the real question is "why doesn't the media do its job".

 The real question is "why don't we do our job?" And that is a good question, indeed.

My brain is cloudy, my soul is upside down.

 I really don't have anything tonight. It's already past 8 p.m. and I've been staring at a blank screen for almost an hour in between reading dumb arguments on Quora. So we'll just gonzo it out tonight until we fill up space and then I'll probably go to sleep.

 I've been sleeping a lot lately. I'm just tired and disenchanted with the world, I guess. All that arguing over the Actual Paying Gig took a lot out of me. I'm hanging in, but I'm tempted to jump ship once I have enough saved up for a laptop. July might be enough to make the nut.

 There's a certain level of pride that comes with getting paid to write again, but I'm really not interested in the hassle. Part of the ongoing jibber-jabber over "cancel culture" is folks joking around about the poor, oppressed $20 thousand a month New York Times writers having to deal with editors, which is worse than the worst thing ever. Yes, even worse than that.

 I'm almost sympathetic to them and that stroke. I used to hate working with editors, going over what I got wrong and how it could be more readable. I recognize the utility in it, I just hated doing it. I wrote it, my job is done, trust me that everything worth knowing is in there. Editing is your job, you do it. I'm taking a nap.

 Now, having to deal with Google searches screwing with whatever it screws with, that's a whole new kettle of fish. I quit pro journalism at what was basically the beginning of the Online Age. It's sort of funny, I remember going to a conference in the '90s and one of the speakers telling us that within 10 years all newspapers would be online. Ten years later saw him wrong, but 20 years was closer.

 Still not there yet, of course, and most publications are going to primarily online because it's too damn expensive to keep up a print entity these days. It's a shame because there's a real opportunity now that everyone and their grandma has a smartphone and all you'd need is an app. However, real journalists got caught with their pants down and now the average schlub gets their news from Facebook. We are a dumb culture.

  Speaking of journalism, as much as I agree the Big Time Media has its issues, I've decided that too much ranting about the "mainstream media" will become one of the phrases I use to decide if someone is worth listening to or not. Like, for instance, "cancel culture." Anyone who claims "cancel culture" is a serious issue isn't worth paying attention to. Anyone who's criticism of the media starts and ends with "they all lie" or "they push agendas" isn't worth paying attention to.

 Your average media outlet - especially one like The Washington Post or CBS news - has little stake in ideological causes and are more concerned with ad revenue. They may be socially liberal, but they are tightly bound to the American Capitalist idea of Profit Über Alles. Any attempt at journalistic integrity is mainly so they don't get sued for what they print or broadcast. If you think otherwise, you're far too naive for me to help.

 That's just how it is. Maybe it can be changed, maybe it can't. I don't know. But the fact that it exists does not render the media as a whole useless. If you understand that bias and recognize how it affects everything about the process - from gathering info down to presentation - it's at least useful.

 But people want to complain. We all think we're the main protagonist of the Big Narrative, and every story has to have an antagonist. It's just easier to think some overwhelming force - capitalism, socialism, religion, atheism - is making people and life awful instead of it just being a case of people being buttholes because they can or know of no other way to be.

 The universe really doesn't care about us at all. Remember: it existed for over 14 billion years without mankind and doesn't really need us around. Calm down. Have a good time. Don't be assholes to each other. It'll be all right.

Drinkin' a beer and singin' a country song.

 Journalism is a beast that lives in the Now. It doesn't have time to linger on the Past and is too busy to concern itself with the Future. The next edition has to be laid out. The next story has to be filed. The next show has to be planned and the next interview scheduled. It comes and goes so quickly you barely have to think, and if no one gives you grief for screwing up - for real or by their standards - then it's a Good Day. However, it's just a day, tomorrow is another one, and you have White Space to fill.

 I think that's one of the things that attracted me to Journalism. I don't dwell much on the past if I can help it. Sometimes I can't, granted. Sometimes in the wee hours, I remember an insult I let slide or one I made, a come-on I passed on or an attempt that fell flat on its face. It's all blurry and hazy, though. Part of that is the copious amount of weed I've consumed over the past two decades but most of it is I simply don't want to remember.

 Since moving home, I have absolutely nothing to do with my friends from school days. Part of that is because I know from experience that the different paths led have made making any sort of connection damn near impossible. Part of it's resentment for always being treated like the oddball that I was and am. It is what it is, but I don't have to like it.

 And part of it is sheer laziness. But not all of it. People asked me why I quit drinking, and I tell them it was because it ceased being fun enough to deal with the hangover and upset stomach. That's the truth, as far as it goes, but it's not the whole story. I never liked drinking alone, even just that beer with supper or after work. Anytime I'd bring a six-pack home, it'd sit the refrigerator for at least a month, getting drunk mainly because I was embarrassed it was still there.

 Maybe it's because of my dad. Back when he drank, Daddy would bring home a case on Friday intending it to last the entire weekend. When Momma would go get groceries the next day, though, he'd have her buy another case because the first one was gone, son. And after he got hurt and weekends no longer meant anything to him, he could drink as much as he wanted whenever we wanted. He did, and it really didn't go well for none of us. Drinking alone at home just doesn't sit well with me.

 But I don't think it's all that. I like bars. I've always liked bars. Not too fancy, not too sleazy, not too hip, not too dingy. Just a place where I can drink a few beers, get some reading done, and, most importantly, watch humanity without having to participate. When I lived in the French Quarter, I achieved a modicum of fame for being the Guy Who's Always Got A Book. That's how I chose my bars, which ones were the best lit and the most bar space for reading room. I'm not kidding. Bartenders from different joints talked about me - I'm an excellent tipper - and it was a matter of slight concern, I'm told, when I dropped off the map one day, as I'm wont to do.

 But I didn't read all the time. Nope, sometimes the book was a shield between me and the rest of the patrons so I could watch them live life without having to interact with them. Some people like to go to malls, some people like going to parks, but in vino veritas always worked for me. The dance of humanity is all that more fascinating when people are a bit lubed up. I've seen relationships come and go, friendships rise and fall, lives come to a dead stop only to spark back to activity with the next shot.

 It didn't always work, though. I must've had That Kind of Face. People have always opened up to me for some reason. One of the few things I did well as a Journalist was to get people comfortable enough to talk to me. Didn't matter how long my hair got or how frazzled my overall appearance got, I seemed to calm folks down. Granted, there's only so much you can do with outright assholes, but just being Me has kept my ass alive in some seriously hairy situations. My brother says, "Your lucky [rednecks/bikers/gang bangers/chullos/frat boys/etc.] like you."

 There's something to it. Even today, with my scraggly beard and the bluebird of youth long gone, complete strangers still feel comfortable telling me how life is going for them and I've never mastered the art of getting them to leave me alone. It's one of the reasons I don't leave the house anymore.

 But I was talking about drinking. Like I said, in vino veritas, and sometimes when it's an hour till closing time and there's no one in the bar but you, the bartender and someone who's got some shit they absolutely have to get off their chest but can't tell anyone they have to deal with on a daily basis, well... I've heard some shit, let's say.

 I'm a bleeding heart and a soft touch, that also plays into it. Women have told me about instances of sexual abuse. Guys have told me when they've broken their parents' hearts. Vice versa, more times than I can count. I've talked suicides down. There's been a number of times I think I may have been the only thing that stopped a shooting. I've talked wives out of leaving their husbands, even if just for a night with me, and I've helped husbands understand that they may not have meant to do it, but it's done and they have to live with it. Parents whose kids were dead or dead to them, and grown-up children still waiting for Momma to come home for good.

 Night after night, bar after bar, I heard so many stories. And you know what? I don't remember them, almost to a one. It's all lost in a green haze, an alcoholic buzz, and the determination to not remember that horrible shit this otherwise admired, desired, smiling Darling of the Scene just told me she's never told anyone else. Journalism deals in the present. Cover the Story, Write the Article, and move on because the Presses Don't Stop.

 And that's why I don't drink anymore. I'd still stay stoned if I could get good smoke on a regular basis without having to worry about the state stormtroopers kicking down my door. Same thing with mushrooms, I'd do those every day if I could get away with it. But that's not how life is and we find our fun where we can. I don't miss drinking and I don't miss bars. I certainly don't miss hearing the deepest secrets of someone I barely know. Being straight under duress is a drag but at least it's quiet here.

 Can't ask for much else, so I don't.

You can't beat the Devil but you can rob that sucker blind.

 So I do want to get this knocked out this morning instead of waiting until tonight to do it. However, I'll be double damned if I can come up with anything interesting to put here. There really isn't all that much I feel like ranting about.

 I guess I could talk about that Harper's letter and this blinkered idea professional op-ed writers have that they're somehow suffering under the brutal oppression of being told they sometimes write utter nonsense. But that is just so tedious and, frankly, doesn't ring true. I find it difficult to empathize with someone who goes from a six-figure job with The New York Times editorial board to a six-figure job with any other publication, particularly in a country where on-the-ground reporters are getting arrested and the shit kicked out of them by cops simply because they're covering protests. It's not so much that it doesn't ring true, it's that I just don't care.

 Having a regular column in a major newspaper used to mean something. It meant you've traveled, paid your dues, and stomped the terra. It meant you had the history and experience to have the insight worth sharing. Now it seems it's a job that anyone can snag, provided they come from money or know someone heavy in the publishing business. I don't want to pick on him, but Ben Shapiro's a perfect example. His dad is a mover in the business and his mom is a shaker in Hollywood. His family connections got him columns with Townhall and World Net Daily 20 years ago where he'd write about being a virgin in the sinful world of post-primary education.

 After apparently failing as a screenwriter, he used those same connections to get gigs with Breitbart and The Daily Caller - itself the brainchild of a spawn of privilege and connection, Tucker Carlson - and blabber on a podcast. This part is just personal, but I don't think he has anything interesting or elucidating to say. He's the type that rails against elites when he himself is a prime example thereof.

 As a side note, the other issue I have with him is the whole "debate leftists and destroy them" thing. Debate outside of high school isn't supposed to be a contest or a king-of-the-hill thing. It's an intellectual process to help you sharpen your arguments and clarify your ideas, not (necessarily) to change your "opponents" mind. Even in high school, you're judged more on how well you use rhetorical devices and avoid logical pitfalls than the veracity of your premise. And good lord, don't get me started on how misused the concept of "logic" is in these debates and how much Shaprio and his cronies are responsible for the debasing thereof.

 Anyhow, to tie all this back around, the idea that anyone on the Times editorial board or any editorial board of any major publication is good for anything but an occasional interesting stroke is foolish, and it is the high of pomposity to suggest that telling them they're full of shit is somehow "canceling" them or infringing on their free speech. I realize this may sound a bit silly coming in this format, but just because it expresses an opinion, no matter how succinctly and intelligently, doesn't mean it should be paid attention to, much less held beyond reproach or criticism.

 The main thing is you are free to say what you wish - First Amendment aside, that just deals with governmental control, which is ephemeral and circumstantial anyway - but you must be willing to accept the consequences. I can sit here and say all day that, for example, work should be abolished or the police need to be restructured from the ground up, and that's fine. However, anyone reading it has the right to tell me to skip rope and forevermore ignore anything I have to say.

 "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose," said Kris Kristofferson, and that goes double for "freedom of speech". Speak as if you have nothing to lose - or nothing to gain - and you'll as likely as not always speak from the heart. But take your licks when they come. You do yourself no favors by demanding everyone accept whatever dumb shit you say and not push back.

 I swear, it embarrasses me to no end that that's what I wanted to be when I grew up, an op-ed writer. Again, I realize it's a bit weird that stance is coming from someone who does that same sort of thing for fun, but there you go. I ain't going to pretend otherwise.

 I should probably go ahead and wrap this up. I do want to make a note about what's going on in Portland, specifically federal officers in tactical gear with no identification are snatching protesters up off the streets. That ain't right. I've said it elsewhere, but all these clowns who're making hay about the First Amendment or Second Amendment are going to be mighty shocked that neither is worth shit because we all let the Fourth and Fifth get rubbed out.

 Bet you won't see the folks from Harper's write a letter about that. Support local journalism. They're about the only ones looking out for you anymore and we're going to be up a creek once they're gone.

If I come up with something clever or get inspired, maybe. Don't bet the farm on it, though.

 I haven't filed anything today if you're waiting. Someone's reading this, apparently, even if it's just the webcrawlers. Anyhow, straight talk is my mind's been on idle all day and I've been too lazy to knock it into gear. I'll get something before the day's out. Mahalo.

 It's an hour-and-a-half later. Me and my buddy Otis, the Jack Russell, took a brief constitutional. It didn't really help spark anything, though. We didn't get far, either. These hot, humid days aren't pleasant in the first place and he is getting older. I do think the "hot, humid" here is worse than the "hot, humid" in New Orleans. You weren't ever far from some serious body of water down there, between the Big River and the Old Pontchartrain. Some days felt like there was a breeze coming in off the Gulf, as well.

 Here it's just green and woods and swamp. Everything's closer together and it seems like the only breeze you get is cars passing. Or it's a lead up to a tornado, one or the other.

 Well, I've gone to staring off into space again. Looks like it's going to be one of those nights. I won't have any Actual Paying Work until next week sometime, either. So I'll keep this page open and blither on it until I reach word count.

 I really can't even get worked up about anything today. There's another round of conservative think-piece writers having a big conference so they can tell each other that they're being censored, but that's just tedious. It's the same whine over and over again, usually in publications and on platforms that the average person couldn't even think of having. And they usually get paid stupid amounts of money for their banal opinions and lack of insight. Every time David Brooks trends, I want to tell The New York Times that I can write 6,000 words of gibberish a week - and indeed, I do - and I wouldn't ask for the six-figure salary that lump of moldy bread brings down for some reason.

 Speaking of Twitter, none of the trending topics are really anything I can hang my hat on. The head of FedEx is encouraging Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder to change the team's name to something less egregiously racist, but that's nothing new. That being said, we are in the midst of a Thing and if you'd have told me the Mississippi flag would be lamped for a change and it'd happen as quick as it happened, I probably wouldn't have believed you.

I'll save any COVID-19 stuff for the News, but it's looking grim out there, folks. Numbers continue to rise, the federal government continues to sit on its thumbs, and far too many of Our Fellow Americans think they have the God-given Constitutional right to spit in your coffee if you ask them to wear a mask. I honestly do hate to be this way, but being a hermit that's walled himself off from human contact turned out to be a mighty shrewd move on my part.

Well, that's word count. I think I'll tie it off here, maybe come back to it later. Be honest, I've been giving Fallout: New Vegas another swing and would like to get back to it. I'd be hell on wheels if I could stick to one game long enough to finish it. In any event, there you go.

Don't give me no plastic saddle.

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All is not lost, it is only mistaken. That's small consolation, but I know just how you feel.

 The internet's dropping in and out again. Hasn't done this all week after Momma got the new modem from the telephone company. She thinks it's due to the heat, and hell, I don't know, it might be. It's in the high 80s outside and fairly humid.

 Anyhow, I got the screen open, so we can do what we do. I can always add links or look up stuff later. Since I'm remembering it this weekend, let's take a lot at what we saw with the News this week.

Monday

Wednesday

Friday

 I'm particularly proud of Friday's offering, a fairly deep dive into the Breeona Taylor execution. Another black person murdered because white shooters had to kill someone, another cover-up by local law, and another killing that went unknown for months until social media raised hell about it. This time, however, the killing was done by the local police in the most murderously Barney Fife way possible. They thought they were hitting a drug den which was actually 10 miles away, searching for a suspect who was already in custody.

 Check out the piece and keep your eye on this one. Wingnuts may raise Cain about how their First Amendment rights are being trampled because they can't post Nazi propaganda on Facebook or gun losers think it's perfectly natural and sane to go to Starbucks loaded for bear, but if the Fourth Amendment gets anymore tattered, none of that will matter. There is definitely a racist element, sure, and the American people as a whole are far too generous to cops who kill the wrong black person when killing anyone wasn't necessary. But if we as a culture keep giving authoritarians more and more leeway, we're going to wake one day wondering how that boot got on our neck.

 Governmental authoritarianism is nothing new. Once nations started actually becoming nations rather than kingdoms, their governments felt the need to keep a close eye on the populace, for good or ill. It is what it is. Read your Roman history. Read about John Dee. Read about the development of the Chinese Empire. I don't know how much we'd fight it, either, as we all carry locator beacons in our pockets as a part of the super computers and Hitchhiker's Guides. Hell, I'm using Google to look up some of this stuff, and they've long since given up on the whole "don't be evil" thing.

 As an aside, I don't fret too much about the "surveillance state", either from the government or Corporate America. I don't like it and know it can be abused, and it is, but I don't have to worry about it. I'm a straight white male, I'm good. I hope the System comes crashing down, but figure since it will do it to itself anyway, there's nothing I can really do to help. But the main reason is I don't think I should have to hide what I say or think from anyone. There's nothing I do that needs to be hidden, I feel. Not my love of mind-altering substances or flirtations with anarchism, I don't see any of that as anything to be ashamed of. The law changes, as the Good Doctor said, but I don't feel I have to.

 Well. I've reached word count. During my constitutional, I thought about writing about the corporate press, the mainstream media, and why most people who complain about it really don't know what they're talking about. I don't really feel like doing a deep dive now, but in a nutshell, the mainstream, big corporate press - CNN, the networks, The New York Times, even the big-time websites like Slate or Politico - are all owned by rich people or groups of rich people who incorporate themselves. Most of them are worth ridiculous amounts of money themselves. CNN is worth about five billion dollars, and Fox recently sold assets to Disney for $71 billion.

 These companies and people have a vested interest in keeping the Status Quo. That is, whatever societal changes (you think) they promote, the cold, hard economics of things aren't meant to change. That's how they got rich and how they get richer; they're not going to change that. If you honestly think CNN or the Times wants to destroy capitalism, you are a goddamn moron. Ted Turner might have wanted to change the world for (what he thinks is) the better, but he doesn't own CNN anymore.

 This is reality, but people don't want to acknowledge it and that's where the problem comes. Everything about it makes much more sense if you can recognize that little bit of wisdom and keep it in mind when using the media. It's easy to rage at Maggie Haberman and her limp approach to the Trump Administration, but her job and The New York Times' mission isn't shaking up the Status Quo. They are the Status Quo, just as Trump is, and both of them have a vested interest in keeping the gravy train going. The mainstream press is still useful, just keep that in mind.

 So, one of these days I'll get deeper into it. I keep saying that about a number of things but I haven't yet. That being said, I would totally do it if someone wants to pay me. I'm getting pretty good at deep dives to explain things, especially when I'm getting paid. Just something to think about. Just putting it out there.

Friday, January 24, 2020

 Another day in a row I got no drive a'tall, and thus, don't really feel like doing this. I will, though, because I need to keep doing it. For some reason, even just to have something to tell myself I need to do.

Sunday, January 12, 2020

 The rain's moved on and today was clear and sunny. A rather damp and sodden "clear and sunny," but there you go. It's turned off cool, as well, resetting the winter weather wheel of fate. We're supposed to get more rain next weekend, maybe even some snow. Anyhow.

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

 I'm really not in the mood for this today, so let's fill some space and get some exercise. You got a problem with it, request a refund.

Saturday, October 26, 2019

 Well, the Big Wind blew through Northeast Mississippi all day. Liked to have blown us clean off the map, too.

Monday, October 14, 2019

 I'm wired & inspired, so let's get this started. Gonzo ahead, so forewarned is forearmed.

Friday, October 11, 2019

 I should go ahead and get this knocked out, I suppose. Less enthusiasm and more obligation, but I'm the one who made this bed.

Sometimes it's worth the effort.

Writing something because I should be writing something. Feel free to get on with your lives. I certainly should.

And is there any town that more lives the idea of "Don't Panic"?

 As much as I fought getting one, I must admit I do severely dig my smart phone. It's a battered Samsung Mythic, and it's a little over two years old. I'm way past the point of updating, but I tend to keep hardware until it quits working all together.

 Anyhow, one of the reasons I like my smart phone is because it fulfills a boyhood dream of having a hand-held, portable guide to Life, the Universe and Everything of my very own, and one that was updated in more or less real time. Just fire up the pitiful little browser, call up Wikipedia or Google, and I'm off. Should I wake up in an unfamiliar land, I've got Lost Planet and Wikitravels bookmarked. Finally, with Twitter and the AP, I've got a running, to-the-minute news-feed right in my pocket, which brings to mind the e-readers in Transmetropolitan. Hell, my phone's use as a communication device is almost tertiary.