Trump.<\/p>\n
Trump again.<\/p>\n
Donald fucking Trump again,<\/p>\n
Fucking Donald fucking Trump again.<\/p>\n
Fucking Donald fucking Trump fucking again.<\/p>\n
I am struggling to get my brain around this. What the buggering fuck is wrong<\/em> with people?<\/p>","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/927295.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/927123.html","pubDate":"Thu, 19 Sep 2024 02:28:20 GMT","title":"The Professor Muses","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/927123.html","description":" So, I\u2019m drinking Founder\u2019s Breakfast Stout, brewed, according to the label, with oatmeal and coffee. I\u2019m speculating on what stout brewed with bacon, as well, might taste like.<\/p>","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/927123.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/926863.html","pubDate":"Sat, 26 Jun 2021 23:52:40 GMT","title":"The Professor Is Apparently Seeking","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/926863.html","description":"26 June 2021<\/i>
I just had a startling insight. A lot of my dreams \u2013especially the ones that continue a plot line \u2013 are about moving through, or trying to find my way through, long, cramped, and busy places. The office I sometimes work when I\u2019m asleep is pretty much a series of rooms, sort of like the space grew organically as they needed more space, that go deep into the building. My desk, and the stockroom, are near the back. There are at least two department stores I\u2019m trying to pass through to find something. The college building (the one with the walkway around the seventh floor and the pool on the third) where I so often am trying to find my classroom, or trying to get to the caf. The art museum. The shopping mall grown organically \u2013 like Gibson\u2019 Golden Gate Bridge \u2013 into a long winding space. The big house with the (usually abandoned) dorm off the side of it. And most especially the narrow street in some city I\u2019m not familiar with, lined with small shops and vendor\u2019s booths, from which I never know how to get back to the bus station. The shabby but spacious and airy third-floor walkup.
I\u2019ve been to all these places time and time again; they\u2019re all familiar. I\u2019m usually looking for something; often somewhere to eat or a men\u2019s room. Often I\u2019m trying to get somewhere, though I never remember where or why.
Reading from the dream interpretation book you bought at the checkout counter for $2.99, it could be a birth canal. On the other hand, it could be the passage to death. Or, like the Pilgrim\u2019s Progress, search for salvation. Or just an expression of being in a complicated world I\u2019m not sure how-to navigate. Or the search for a bathroom. If I had a therapist it would be a good opening statement. I\u2019ll give it a good ponder, but I\u2019m pleased to have spotted the similarities.","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/926863.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/926526.html","pubDate":"Wed, 27 Jan 2021 20:27:31 GMT","title":"So Many, So Many","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/926526.html","description":"News. Never a good idea. I just heard from my sister that Skip, our half-brother from my father's first marriage (all of which I found out about when I was 25) died last November. Born before the war, he must have been at least 80. He'd lost his wife a couple years ago, so I'm not astonished, but it's still sad.
Couple months ago we lost our last uncle -- Whit, my mother's older sister's widower -- to the virus. No one but my mother now left from that generation. I'm running out of relatives.","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/926526.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/926317.html","pubDate":"Tue, 27 Oct 2020 21:27:44 GMT","title":"Clang, Clang, Clang Went The Trolley","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/926317.html","description":"27 October 2020
Bang, bang, bang went the van.
Had another accident. I was trying to get out of the left lane, and someone in a van (who must have been in my blind spot, though I\u2019d have sworn there was no-one there) hit me as he tried to get past me. Messed up that end of the bumper, and the fender too.
Just dropped the car off at a body shop. Dealt with the insurance, already got the check. (Five hundred less than their estimate \u2013 deductible. Car rental (Enterprise) delivered a rental vehicle to the shop. It\u2019s part of the creeping future.
When we bought the \u201916 Hyundai, I was surprised to find that there was no trunk keyhole. You have to hold down a button on your fob to open it \u2013 or, apparently, sit or move or think of something, as the trunk opens a lot by itself. Well, this car doesn\u2019t even have an ignition lock. You just keep the fob in your pocket, and push a button on the dash. The shift lever is a dial. And whenever I stop, so does the engine. Might be a hybrid?
In any case, as usual, whenever I start to get a handle on the future, they move it on me. I\u2019ve been reading about the future for nearly 60 years \u2013 and no one thought it would be this damn annoying.","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/926317.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/926017.html","pubDate":"Wed, 07 Oct 2020 02:26:47 GMT","title":"All In All, You Were All Just Bricks In The Wall","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/926017.html","description":"Damn. It doesn't look as though The Great Trumpkin will die of the virus. It would have been so fitting. And It would have solved so many problems.
So many people wanted him dead, Facebook and Twitter posted rules that you couldn't wish for his death. I don't have an account on any of these platform. But Iso wanted<\/i> him dead.","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/926017.html?view=comments#comments","category":"trunpkin"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/925766.html","pubDate":"Tue, 11 Aug 2020 01:59:52 GMT","title":"A Gaze Blank And Pitiless As The Sun","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/925766.html","description":"10 August 2020<\/i>
Not to say that it\u2019s been hot \u2013 but the other day we had medical appointments. They were very early, so I got Dunkies (that is to say, takeaway coffee) on the way down. What with one thing and another, we got back to the car something like two hours later. I checked the coffee \u2013 and it was still drinkably hot.
Ah, well. This place had good AC, and it\u2019s only three months until the blasting heat begins to back off just a little.","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/925766.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/925634.html","pubDate":"Wed, 08 Jul 2020 01:57:30 GMT","title":"Aluminum ... Tastes Like Fear","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/925634.html","description":"Who'd have thought that tomorrow, would be so strange<\/i>?","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/925634.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/925367.html","pubDate":"Sun, 14 Jun 2020 01:26:31 GMT","title":"The Professor Has Had A Lot Of Rum","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/925367.html","description":"I used to know a nurse. She said once that if she knew the missiles were on their way,she would go stand on the roof of her building and wait to die. She could not stand the idea of trying to work the flood of shattered, dying patients.
Now that I live in Quincy, and the shipyard is long dead, I might survive the initial impacts. I'm not sure how I feel about that.","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/925367.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/925155.html","pubDate":"Wed, 03 Jun 2020 20:53:20 GMT","title":"The Professor Is Tenting On The Old Camp Ground","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/925155.html","description":"3 June 2020<\/i>
I have excellent <\/i>news.
Spangler is shipping.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
You may remember that a couple years ago, to the horror of all right-thinking people, NECCO (New England Confectionery Company) abruptly closed and was sold off piecemeal. An absolute bidding frenzy was set off as people tried to acquire the dwindling supply of NECCO wafers, which date back to the 1840s, were popular during the Civil War (hence my title), and are fairly obviously the world\u2019s best candy \u2013 possibly if you leave out Turkish Delight. (One lady called a wholesaler and offered to swap her car for their supply. They passed.)
I got my hands on several bags of the small rolls, enough to fill a biscuit tin and over, but that was it. As far as I knew, I would have to make maybe a hundred miniature rolls last thirty or forty years.
But in the business section of this morning\u2019s paper was a small article. Spangler, the people who make Circus Peanuts, had bought the rights (and, I assume, the equipment) for NECCO wafers. It\u2019s taken them a couple of years to set up the line, but they\u2019re in production and they\u2019re shipping<\/i>.
They\u2019ve even been smart enough not to mess with them. There are still cinnamon and clove wafers. I am so happy<\/i>.","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/925155.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/924709.html","pubDate":"Sun, 31 May 2020 16:21:28 GMT","title":"The Professor Got Some Groceries, Some Peanut Butter, Should Last A Couple Of Days","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/924709.html","description":"31 May 2020
So. COVID, COVID, COVID. LiveJournal in a time of plague. Frankly, I haven\u2019t been writing anything because first I\u2019d have to explain to the future about this entire pandemic.
However, we\u2019re still talking about the 1918 pandemic, so I\u2019m going to assume memory.
Per my title, I\u2019ve been singing Life During Wartime<\/i> under my breath since this started. I also note that shopping has become very Soviet \u2013 you stand in line for a while, and when you get into the store you check to see what they actually have. Though slowly some supplies are coming back \u2013 yesterday there were still no canned vegetables or cooking oil, but they did have a little TP.
None of us have killed any of the other, even after being in the apartment for, what, two months now. This is good. Let us hope that this is stable.
In any case, off to do laundry. Still here. Still breathing. Keep well.","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/924709.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/924569.html","pubDate":"Thu, 19 Mar 2020 20:04:36 GMT","title":"Rage, Rage Against The Dying Of The Light","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/924569.html","description":"One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. <\/i>
I did in fact woke from troubled dreams this morning. All that I remember is the dream I was having as I woke. I was talking to my father, who died when I was 30. You've been gone thirty-five years<\/i>, I was explaining. We're the same age now.<\/i>
We're the same age now.","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/924569.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/924380.html","pubDate":"Wed, 26 Feb 2020 17:38:53 GMT","title":"The Professor Is Not Ready To Use the Term \"Hoarder\" In Any Way","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/924380.html","description":"I just counted, and I have currently 151 shirts.
A few are well-worn, and there are a few frayed collars, but all of them are wearable and fit. Most of them fit...
If nothing else, I'm a fool for a bargain. And did you know that rich people send good quality shirts to Goodwill just because they tore one elbow out? That's where I get most of my Brooks Brothers, and for $5 apiece.
I guess it's lucky the Basement is not with us anymore.
151. I have to go and think about my life. Also, most of them need ironing, and I'd best get started.","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/924380.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/924128.html","pubDate":"Mon, 17 Feb 2020 22:29:09 GMT","title":"She Died On The Interstate, Instantly, Seventy Miles An Hour","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/924128.html","description":"17 February 2020
Blab naggit. I have been foiled by Apple, once again.
So, I had iTunes on the old desktop, which is sufficiently senior that there\u2019s no way to connect it wirelessly. We got a new laptop (OK, three years ago. Your laptop is a month old? Well, that's great, If you could use a nice, heavy paperweight<\/i>) I wanted to transfer my iTunes library (11,000 songs deep). I asked the google. I asked Wiley, who knows stuff. I went to the Apple site. I did, or tried to do, what they advised me. I simply could not copy the damn library to an external drive.
(Before you ask, I did try to download everything onto the new, more capacious iPod, but the version on the desktop is also old, so it won\u2019t talk to the iPod or update the version.)
Pooh.
So I\u2019m doing exactly what I didn\u2019t want to do \u2013 loading everything, CD by CD, onto the new machine. Better than 550 CDs (I\u2019m up to Philip Glass). Not to mention all of the material I don\u2019t have CDs for \u2013 borrowed, bought, downloaded, found. So far I\u2019ve pulled a couple hundred more albums off the old machine, and have yet to start the hundreds of single songs I\u2019ll have to make lists of so I know what I\u2019m transferring.
At least I\u2019m getting plenty of reading done as I wait for bits to scamper.
Pooh.","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/924128.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/923865.html","pubDate":"Mon, 27 Jan 2020 16:56:20 GMT","title":"The Professor Is Appalled","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/923865.html","description":"I was just reading the \"Ideas\"section of Sunday's Boston Globe, and read an article reporting that the National Archive has been carefully editing pictures of marches and demonstrations to remove signs critical of the Orange President. That was literally Winston Smith's job at the Ministry of Truth<\/i>. We have advanced from Orwellian into full-on Orwell.","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/923865.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/923436.html","pubDate":"Thu, 23 Jan 2020 02:10:56 GMT","title":"Six Long Months I Spent In Quincy; Six Long Months Doing Nothing At All.","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/923436.html","description":"22 January 2020
So. We moved.
Our landlords sold the house. George, the husband, had a job that required him to leave at 5:00 AM to drive for a couple of hours, and had decided that this was untenable. Their plan had been to wait until their youngest was through college \u2013this was his freshman year \u2013 and then move south to avoid the snow. Now, they told us, they were buying a house nearer to George\u2019s work, and had actually made an offer.
Liz, the wife, said that she didn\u2019t want to move \u2013 she\u2019d always lived in the urban area, was somewhat agoraphobic, and, moving out into the exurbs, was concerned about bears. (Not as silly as it sounds \u2013 there are a good number of black bears in Eastern Mass and NH now). But, she said, the Bible puts the husband at the head of the house, so she had to do what he said. I would, at this point, have been questioning my beliefs, but I kept that to myself. (I did try it on Mrs. Professor, later, to her quite robust amusement).
Our hope was that the new owners would want stable, dependable tenants, so we crossed our fingers and waited. Unfortunately, the realtor, who did not seem at all interested in the property (he scheduled several viewings and didn\u2019t show for them), took the very first offer, from people who wanted to turn the place into an \u201cAir B&B\u201d. (My sister, who owns several actual B&Bs, was somewhat scornful at the whole scheme). They demanded the building vacated.
We were told we had three weeks to vacate. You can imagine the probability. We did a little research and found that if they had gone to court to get us evicted, we could have requested a stay to find new digs, and a couple in their sixties with a disabled member would have gotten at least a year\u2019s grace. We pointed this out to them. Still, we didn\u2019t want to be obnoxious, so we apartment hunted furiously.
It turned out we couldn\u2019t afford to live in Dorchester any more.
Let me repeat that. It turned out we couldn\u2019t afford to live in Dorchester any more. The lovely Mrs. Professor had never lived more than two blocks from where we were, and had constantly gotten BS about living in a poor area. But now gentrification has arrived. There was a triple-decker across the street with an apartment for rent, and they wanted $3200 a month for it. Forty years ago, you could probably have bought the place for that amount per floor. We couldn\u2019t afford to live in Dorchester any more.
We started looking in Quincy, south across the river, where I had lived from 1965 to 1985, and where our church and some friends were. When I got there, 55 years ago, the town was solid Catholic, Irish and a community of Italians, many of which were still in the stonecutter trade. Now, it\u2019s at least 30% Chinese, with five big Asian supermarkets and entire areas with little or no English in the store windows. We bounced off this community a couple of times, including an apartment tour that lasted a good 25 seconds (\u201cThat\u2019s the kitchen, here the bedroom, we go now.\u201d) and a woman who told Janet if we had that many books, we \u201cbreak house\u201d and not to come.
Then we found a condo for rent that suited a lot of our needs \u2013 no stairs, room for all my books (currently, 3,981 of them), a walk-in tub for Janet\u2019s arthritis. So we moved. We\u2019re in post-war housing, which I swore I\u2019d never do, but now we have a kitchen (and not just an empty room with a stove in it), and a dish washer, and a washer & dryer, and indoor parking (out of the snow), and a big deck. Mind, it\u2019s electric everything (stove and heating included), and last month we got a $600 electric bill, but we can cope. It\u2019s less than half a mile to the Quincy Square T stop, so if I ever get a damn job I can get there conveniently.
Though, true, I have not yet learned to dance for Flannigan\u2019s ball.","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/923436.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/923310.html","pubDate":"Thu, 12 Dec 2019 19:54:01 GMT","title":"The Professor Considers Leaving The Vehicle Assembly Building","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/923310.html","description":"12 December 2019\t
It so happens that we have a Keurig, a coffee maker that uses little prefilled pods. (I realize the ethical issues in this, but as we as a species will be extinct within three generations, it\u2019s all kind of academic.)
We recently gained a platform for it, which it sits on, and which contains a drawer to store pods in. It\u2019s about as wide as it is deep. Since a Keurig on a platform is too close to the overhead cabinets to lift the pod loading hatch, it rolls out so the machine is unencumbered.
It occurred to me almost immediately that what it most looked like to me was the big tracked platform that used to move spaceships from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch site. There is thus a certain feeling of ceremony<\/i> whenever I roll the appliance out.
What really has me excited, though, is that yesterday I learned that Lego has a new kit out \u2013 it\u2019s around 3000 pieces to make a three-foot model of the Saturn V. The kit is well over a hundred dollars, and I\u2019d have no place to display it, but I am enchanted by the thought of putting the completed model on the trundling platform and rolling it out to meet its destiny.
We have ignition<\/b><\/i>.","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/923310.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/923035.html","pubDate":"Sun, 08 Dec 2019 20:35:57 GMT","title":"The Professor Passes Another Milestone, Or, Quite Possibly, A Millstone","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/923035.html","description":"8 December 2019
Yesterday, 7 December, was my birthday. I turned 65. I am now, demographically, elderly.
Pooh.
We spent the day quietly -- slept a little late, went for a drive down to Nantasket, it being such a nice day. Had an early dinner at Fox & Hounds, then went home to listen to NPR. (Ask Me Another<\/i>, the second half of Prairie Home Companion<\/i>, and Says You<\/i>.)
If you asked me what my age was, I'd say around 40. I have decided to view the calendar with deep suspicion, and to carry on on my current course. So there.
65. Pooh and balderdash.","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/923035.html?view=comments#comments","category":"birthday"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/922642.html","pubDate":"Tue, 01 Oct 2019 00:23:20 GMT","title":"Yo Ho Ho!","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/922642.html","description":"Product recommendation, I guess.
When I was a tad, I used to wonder what rum tasted like. (This was under the influence of Treasure Island<\/i> and Horatio Hornblower and similar tales.) When I achieved my majority (actually, when I was 28 and took my first drink), I was sort of disappointed. Even when I made grog, just in case. It did not seem to match the Romance with which I had infused it.
Well.
Last week I bought a bottle of Bacardi Black. Now, this<\/i> tastes like what I imagined fermented molasses to taste like. Mind, I have several ounces on board at the moment, but I believe that I am satisfied with this preparation. I'm drinking it straight with ice (like an officer), and am reasonable happy with the presentation.,
Rum -- there's a short term solution!","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/922642.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/922389.html","pubDate":"Wed, 25 Sep 2019 18:23:38 GMT","title":"To Lay Me Down, One Last Time, To Lay Me Down","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/922389.html","description":"Robert Hunter is dead.
Robert Hunter was the -- or a -- lyricist for the Grateful Dead. He died a couple of days ago. I never much cared for the Dead, so until I read his obituary I didn't know how important his work has been to me over the years. I know that the music is also important, but he wrote Ripple <\/i>and To Lay Me Down<\/i> and Uncle John's Band<\/i>.
I guess ya never know.
It's the same story the crow told me;
It's the only one he knows.
Like the morning sun, you come,
And like the wind you go...<\/i>","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/922389.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/922128.html","pubDate":"Tue, 23 Jul 2019 22:55:54 GMT","title":"In Which The Professor Reflects On Attachment","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/922128.html","description":"You never realize how much stuff you have until you have to put it all in boxes. Seventy-five boxes for books alone. Four large boxes just for shirts!
Marie Kondo would have herself an episode.","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/922128.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/921966.html","pubDate":"Wed, 01 May 2019 00:02:48 GMT","title":"One Night In Bangkok Makes A Hard Man Humble","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/921966.html","description":"I just had a terrible thought.
During the invasion of the body snatchers, what would you find in Bangkok?
Pod Thai.","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/921966.html?view=comments#comments","category":"dreadful jokes"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/921634.html","pubDate":"Wed, 03 Apr 2019 19:44:09 GMT","title":"Just The Fax, Ma\u2019am","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/921634.html","description":"3 April 2019
The lovely Mrs. Professor often watches The Great British Baking Show<\/i>, and I often watch it with her. It\u2019s so un-American<\/i>, in its civility and lack of backbiting. And quite often, as Paul and Mary taste the results of each challenge, I\u2019ve wished that there was some function that would allow them to fax us a sample, so we could taste it too. (OK, devour it whole.)
Then it dawned on me that I already had the perfect solution. Replicators<\/i>.
There would have to be a stage where the samples get scanned, but the same thing happens in the Transporter. (You can\u2019t just bark \u201cTea, Earl Grey, hot\u201d at your device or you just get generic tea, or cake, or shortbread. If you want to try the actual entry, you\u2019d have to have it scanned.) Problem solved, baked goods delivered.
That got me to thinking about the replicators. (The Star Trek automats, not the SG1 evil Legos.)
To receive your heart\u2019s desire, as long as what you desired was lunch, you state your request, and the machine assembles whatever, presumably from a stored pattern. However, the machine can\u2019t just use energy \u2013 E=Mc2 runs both ways. There has to be feedstock mass that it draws from. And, on a closed system like a starship, what will be the most available expendable mass? You know the answer \u2013 poop!
So every time someone pulls a meal from the replicator, it\u2019s made pf someone else\u2019s used meal from a couple days before. Another thing it\u2019s a good idea not to think too closely about. Bon appetit!","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/921634.html?view=comments#comments","category":["poopin","star trek"]},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/921519.html","pubDate":"Wed, 20 Mar 2019 01:06:51 GMT","title":"If You Go Chasing Rabbits, And You Know You\u2019re Going To Fall","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/921519.html","description":"19 March 2019<\/i>
Anyone who knows me knows that my brain seems to be set to \u201cShuffle\u201d. Thus it is that recently, while I was doing something entirely different, my brain said \u201cWasn\u2019t it McCoy who first saw the rabbit? Why would he just be bemused, instead of contacting the captain and announcing that the entire party needed to be evacuated back to the ship, as something had obviously engendered hallucinations?\u201d
A bit of context, which is the classic Trek ep \u201cShore Leave\u201d. A group from the ship is taking their ease on a friendly but uninhabited planet, though no one asks why they are wandering through well-kept gardens. People start to run into things they were thinking or speaking of \u2013 The White Rabbit, closely followed by Alice Liddle; a Police Special .38; a tiger; a Stuka; and an armored knight, who kills the doctor and is shot out of the saddle by the aforementioned revolver.
It turns out, of course, that they have stumbled into a playground run by one of god-like races they keep running into, who repair the doctor and issue him two compliant doxies (women being, of course, nothing but chattel and comfort units.)
But my question stands \u2013 even though they\u2019re In \u2026 Spaaaaaaace<\/i>, don\u2019t they have any survival instinct whatsoever, not to mention protocols and regulations? If you\u2019re on an uninhabited (but well-kempt) planet, and the White Rabbit accosts you, question your perceptions<\/i>.
(That being said, we checked. The Dormouse never says anything resembling \u201cFeed your head\u201d. It turned out that that was Bob Marley.)","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/921519.html?view=comments#comments","category":"star trek"},{"guid":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/921176.html","pubDate":"Thu, 14 Mar 2019 21:47:36 GMT","title":"Precious!","author":"liddle_oldman","link":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/921176.html","description":"14 March 2019
There Frodo was, fallen upon his knees at the chasm's edge. But Gollum, dancing like a mad thing, held aloft the ring, a finger still thrust within its circle. It shone now as if verily it was wrought of living fire.
'Precious, precious, precious!' Gollum cried. 'My Precious! O my Precious!' And with that, even as his eyes were lifted up to gloat on his prize, he stepped too far, toppled, wavered for a moment on the brink, and then with a shriek he fell. Out of the depths came his last wail Precious, and he was gone.<\/i>
I found my ring!
Last fall, riding in the car, I realized that my wedding ring had fallen off. I had lost a few pounds, and the weather was colder, and apparently my finger had shrunk just enough. I queried the restaurant we\u2019d been eating at, and I searched the car and checked all he places I could think of, but it had been a busy day, and I\u2019d been a lot of places, and I had no luck.
Since then, I kept discovering<\/i> that I had lost my ring, every time I pressed my little finger to it to make sure it was secure \u2013 which of course it wasn\u2019t. I was sad, and distressed, and quite unhappy about it.
Well, today, I went out to clean the car out \u2013 it was easily 45 F, and I\u2019d accumulated a collection of 1-liter water bottled and Dunkies cups and general debris. So I packed all the trash into a bag, and pushed the seats all<\/i> the way forward to chase those items which had chosen to hide under them, and by thunder, there was my wedding ring, gleaming against the grey carpeting. Even though of course I had looked there before.
So I put it on, and now I\u2019m happy again.","comments":"https:\/\/liddle-oldman.livejournal.com\/921176.html?view=comments#comments"}]}}