Sensing a pattern

 I wrote a silly short story that appeared in a "Star Trek" anthology 20 years ago, and received almost $300 in small payments spread over 6 or so years. Nothing after that until a notice that the book was remaindered.

Its next appearance was as an ebook.

2020, so far beyond Weird of the World that it broke the calendar, produced 3 checks: $7.69 last January, $5.72 last June, and this month, $0.13.

World-wide publisher Simon & Schuster sent a check for 13 cents. 

ViacomCBS just sold Simon & Schuster to a German media conglomerate; maybe S&S had to get me  off the books.

I'll trade it to the credit union for cash and hope they don't hurt themselves laughing. I did.

-30-

 

 

 

Easy to confuse

 

So I was bummed when I discovered the Mac laptop I bought last summer did not chime on start-up. 

Recently, I learned there's a way to turn the chime back on, but I'm way too scared to mess with coding.

Two days ago, Apple presented a security update.

Now, little Air chimes.

Welcome aboard, grace notes.

😛

 -30-

 

Heavy metal

 

The mysterious "monolith" in the Utah desert failed as an American Stonehenge. Didn't last nearly as long. Too shiny.

Rivets didn't protect it from environmental activists, who saw the damage done by the ignorant people who journeyed into the Land of Hoodoos and Goblins, and took it away. Good on them.

Wiki wiki, copycats showed up in Romania and California.

Somebody tore down the CA version and replaced it with a cross. Because of course.

Burners deep into withdrawal? Popular theory makes it part of a marketing campaign. Google Maps searches indicate it existed for months.

I hope it was Burners.

-30-

Look over there, not over here

 

We're back to the "watch what they do, not what they say" axiom.

Rudy's the scantily clad woman with legs up to here that the audience drools over, while the magician deals from the bottom of the deck or shoves a dove into a serving dish or drops through a trap door in the floor.

Ignore the ugly old man in the cheap suit — Rudy, this time — and turn the spotlight on the un-American  criminal desperately flailing around to keep his job and stay out of jail.

-30-

 

Long time coming

 

Well, that happened.

My favorite sign held by a supporter on TV: ByeDon

🎇

###

The universe demands balance in all things: 

Happy Days Are Here Again versus last night's 5.5 inches of heavy, wet snow. 

And the 5 a.m. electricity blip that scrammed the furnace. Two reset buttons? Who would have guessed.

Two wonderful ladies, one in Northern Nevada, one in Southern, continue celebrating today, so that's a better balance.

-30-

Living wild!

 

The young couple that lives next door went off to a Halloween party just before dark, leaving out a bowl of candy for the neighborhood's few trick-n-treaters.

They returned around midnight.

They spent 30 minutes this morning picking up candy wrappers all over their yard, front and back, and on both sides. Found the bowl behind the house. 

There are some sugar-high raccoons out here.

-30-

 

Life is too f-ing short

 

Thanks so much, Bank of America, for changing log-in security.

I used to be able to sign in to my account, check the balance, and sign out inside of 2 minutes.

Now, I have to ask for a code. My only choice is which telephone number to use. Which means I have to find my clam shell phone, power it up, and let it wait. Today, first time for this abhorrent procedure, I had to wade through spam, clear the Messages section, go back to my laptop, select the phone number. 

Maybe I would not be quite so pissed off if a lens in my glasses had not chosen that very instance to fall out of the frame. Teeny, tiny screw, you'll soon die in the vacuum.

The code came within 40 seconds, I will give you that.

I used to be able to sign in to Chase and check my balance, and sign out inside of 2 minutes.

Now, I have to ask for a code by email. Log in, etc.

Ditto El Toro Crapo for my credit union.

Two-minute checks now take more than 5 minutes. Life is too f-ing short.

Oh, and which ever online account demands I download its app ... Hell no.

Unless ... anybody want to give me a new iPhone and pay a year's worth of phone bills?

-30-

 

 

Round and round we go

I am deeply troubled by the ability of DJT to manipulate the U.S. news media. There’s a pattern he follows, time and again, and they react as if it’s brand-new, unique, and The End of All Things.

He yells that he’s done with Congress over Plague Stimulus legislation, kicks over the card table, and stomps away.

The media report The Presidential Stomp as if it is the first time ever, by him or any other president.

I agree that daily journalism is the first draft of history, but anybody who pays attention should have noticed DJT’s pattern. He’s a failed businessman who gets his way by threats, lawsuits, and tantrums.

Scream, yell, stomp. A couple days later, he’s ready to talk again, makes a new proposal even bigger than Congress’s, and negotiations resume. Eventually he announces that he’s pleased. Pass it and I’ll sign it.

He’s smart in a feral way, but still a one-trick pony.

🔬

I toyed with the idea that he didn’t really contract COVID-19, faked it for heinous reasons, but he’s not that good an actor. 

There are 7 million Americans who know exactly how Rona feels, and know that he’s not virus-free. 

The more lies, the wiser the lied-to.

-30-

 

The kids snapped my very last nerve

 

I used to be a laid-back, calm person. Not anymore.

Rona, DJT and other slayers started my decline, but the kill shot came from the two pre-teen boys next door. 

Their school's distance learning only and they are home all day. All day. 

Last week. This week. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, ad infinitum.

 Hey, little darlings, go play video games, eat ice cream, practice judo. 

Anything but bouncing that expletive-deleted basketball over and over and over, two hours at a stretch. 

Two or three times a day.

Every day. On the back deck, which adds a wonderful tenor reverb that wafts through the Virginia Creeper and lingers outside my window.

-30-

 

I'm out of the game

 

Dropped my Storey County ballot into a USPS Big Blue Box yesterday. Tore up flyers from four candidates from the afternoon mail delivery. 

Commenced changing TV channels when pro-Trump lie-ads come on, such as one a few minutes ago that had at least 5 lies about what he's done for old folks.

Try to talk to me about the election and I will shove index fingers in my ears and sing "la la la ..."

Then kick you in the shins.

###

DJT's doctors said one thing about his condition and treatment, but his henchmen said another today. 

I find comfort in this demonstration of SOP. Maybe WH should hire geniuses that are stable, too.

Still wishing the Trump family eventual recovery.

Thanks, Rona, but Big Joe can win this on his own.

-30-

Abundance of caution?

 

Too little, too late.

Since I'm only human, a mere mortal, I indulged in 5 minutes of gloating last night. It didn't feel as good as it should have.

It is only polite to wish Grifter-in-Chief a quick, pain-packed recovery.

During my career of 42 years in newspaper journalism, I acquired a hefty supply of cynicism. Deep into Quagmire 2020, it overflows the spillways of my mind.

I concluded about 30 years ago that a small percent of reported conspiracies exist, mostly run by people too clever by half, and poorly executed. Most explode and sink. Insisting that DJT commands a war on a worldwide conspiracy is delusional at best, deadly at worst.

It's wishful thinking that the WH faked this illness. 

The Ship of State deserts the sinking rats.

-30-

 

Wicked idea

 

Florida is reopening in denial of the Plague. 

My thought, which I should regret, is that maybe lots of people will get very sick and fail to vote.

Nope. No regrets. Belly up to the bar, boys and girls. Bon appétit, old folks.

-30-

Enough already!

 

Visibility outside is less than a half-mile. The smell of smoke has invaded the atrium. The sun's hidden.

Take it back, California!

-30-

Oh, the agony

I survived before. I will survive this time.

Probably.

Moving all files and apps into a new computer is worse than moving out of a house.

More like a long-lasting funeral for a dear friend. Pet cat. Something that was alive and is now abandoned.

But the 2011-made MacBook Pro is done for. Cue Monty Python and the parrot.

The 2020 MacBook Air is fast and doesn't make scary scratching sounds in the replacement hard drive installed 16 months ago. And the trackpad works. All the time.

Old Moya, ye will be missed, and talked of kindly. New Talyn, welcome.

PS: Blogger? I hate the new design. But then I can't remember a redesign of anything online that I didn't hate. Freeloaders can't be choosers.

-30-

Physics rule

Two days, two blasts of thunderstorm rain, two big-rig wrecks.

July 20 brought gentle rain of about 20 minutes, just long enough to float the oil and rubber accumulated on the surface of Interstate 80 across the river from my home.

July 21 brought a cloudburst of about 10 minutes, enough water to float the rest of the oil and rubber.

Just after 5:30 p.m. on July 20, a westbound tractor-trailer, headed down hill, lost traction on the wet concrete, smashed through the guard rail on its left, and plunked down in the eastbound lanes about 15 feet below. Crossways. Upright. The truck jackknifed and pinned itself against another guard rail. The road was closed until 11 p.m.

Just after 5:30 p.m. on July 21, an eastbound tractor-trailer, headed up hill reached a spot within 100 feet or so of the first wreck, lost traction, skidded and rolled. The trailer ended up upside down and bent. The truck was right side up and bent.

The road was closed until well after 11 p.m.

Bizarrely, none of the cars and trucks behind the big-rigs smashed into them. Not even when the first one dropped out of the sky.

A thousand people had the pleasure of sitting in traffic for 3 hours while NDOT and NHP cleared the wrecks.

The first night, the woman next door was warned via text and took a different route home, 45 miles or so, north to Pyramid Lake and south to I80 20 miles or so east of home.

The second night, it was her husband's turn.

King Physics never loses.

-30-

Anybody seen my patience?

Or my shotgun?

The new people in the house directly behind where I live started with the thump-thump "music" yesterday afternoon. Turned it off after 11 p.m.

That's when the fireworks bang-bang started.

So many lessons to learn about living amongst other people and these dumb fucks missed every one of them.

-30-

Hot time in the not-a-city

I am against the death penalty, and have been most of my life.

However ...

Some MFs spent from around 2 p.m. Saturday to 1 a.m. Sunday setting off fireworks in Rainbow Bend, 6 or 7 times. They moved around, once close to our house.

Sheriff's deputies searched, found nothing.

Death penalty: arsonists, and MFs spraying fireworks anywhere people live, especially during a 3-day-long Red Flag alert.

-30-

Playing into Racists' hands

So Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben are banished from the grocery store.

The net result: Black faces vanish, leaving only pink-skin faces.

Score one for white supremacists.

-30-

Sign of the times

Would somebody for Sanity's sake teach DJT how to tell a joke? Or have him hold up poster board with "That's a Joke!" written on it?

Not that his cortisol-soaked brain can handle learning anymore.

#

Chugging my way through Chernow's "Washington" tome, I encountered the Washington  family crest: a griffin poised above a crown, set above an ornamental shield with three stars.

Emblazoned with the Latin motto:

Exitus Acta Probat.

The outcome justifies the deed.

First time ever, I'm so glad DJT doesn't read. Shhhhh ... nobody tell him General Georgie's British kinfolk said the end justifies the means.

Plus, the crest needs hippos and an owl.

#

Everybody should knock off obsessing over DJT's inability to handle ramps or stairs. First, that damn ramp should have had a railing.

Second, he's so vain he won't wear his glasses. He can't see his feet, can't see steps. Watching him walk down Air Force One's stairs is hilarious and frightening, all at once.

-30-

Motivating the Prez

How to get DJT to wear a Covid-19 mask: Convince him that the people running his investments bought controlling interest in companies that make masks.

And every mask sold puts $50 in his bank account.

He'll make everybody around him mask up. Make the military buy a million.

Make White House medical staff hand them out by the dozens.

-30-

On wings of ... well, Baby Bird

Time flies when humming birds outgrow the nest.

Baby's the one in back. It exercises its wings every few minutes.

Keeping my chin up

Spring flowers help, sort of. The cactus blooms once a year, late May into June. The clematis is slowing eating the garage.

-30-

Lost out here in the stars

Princess Leia: "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

Crybaby-in-Chief doesn't feel it yet, but states and cities are slipping through his dictatorship's slimy fingers. Mask off, jackboots on.

It might take us awhile to slip free, but the United States won't stand for tyranny. That's for  other countries, such as our Trump-era allies.

-30-

Spell check from Hell

The Word A Day column is heavenly, even if you don't make a living with words like I used to.

This week's words included heterography, meaning a different spelling from the one in current use. In the beginning, spelling was a free-for-all.

Word A Day: "Each writer spelled words in his own way, trying to spell them phonetically. By the 19th century, most words had a single 'official' spelling, as a consensus, not by the diktat of a committee."

So, our White House Bully Boy is a leading practitioner of heterography.

Just don't expect him to spell it.

###

Watching a riot in downtown Reno on TV last night was much better than being in the middle of it, trying to make sense of a situation that had none. Ah, the benefits of switching from newspaper reporter to wire editor.

-30-

Did the Earth shake?

A notice from Storey County reminded me that I did not update my mailing address last year, so the USPS kicked back my Primary Election ballot.

Updating was easy via Nevada's voter page.

I did make one other change: Democratic Party from nonpartisan voter. Major emotional trauma.

When I registered to vote the first time, Richard Nixon was president. I attended a news conference he held a couple years earlier in Reno and the man looked deeply unhappy. I could not make myself register as a member of the political party he led. But I also could not become a Democrat, because LBJ started the process of sending my high-school classmates to die in that festering cesspool of Southeast Asia. Nixon's lies were even worse.

Today, I am a registered Democrat. Take that, DJT.

-30-

What? Wait

Chewy.com's package stickers say McCarran's Zip code is 89437, which does not match Lockwood.

Whew.

Hey, Google. I still want Mustang back!

-30-

Wait, what?

Off the grid: Google Maps has erased the community of Mustang, Nev., replacing it with McCarran. Which is all warehouses and fulfillment centers.

They share a common Zip code, but Mustang has the naughty history.

NDOT hasn't changed the Interstate 80 signs. Maybe Google disapproves of brothels, even though there isn't one at Mustang now.

-30-

First time for everything

The "letter" from the Incompetent in Chief praising himself for the $1,200 handout arrived in the mail this afternoon. Your tax dollars at work.

We set it on fire and dropped it into the kitchen sink to burn itself to ashes. Which it couldn't even do right; flame went out with a 2x3 patch left. Second touch of flame ashed it.

Felt so good. I might do that more often.

-30-

Wrong way to rock n roll

4:14 p.m. today: The quarry that's around 2 miles north of where I live enlivened the afternoon.

It felt like an earthquake, first, but with a tail of bump bump bump.

Big cloud of reddish dust spewed in the air was the clue we needed: Granite Construction just blew the crap out of a hillside. First time in 9 months or so. The last couple of times it sounded like a bomb.

So, that was new.

The cat napping on my bed sat up, eyes wide, and looked at me like I should do something.

I did. I looked at the dust cloud. Assured Charley it was fine. Maybe he believed me.

-30-

All righty then

Thank you, Safeway! I scored 2 rolls of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls. OK, Sunday morning: Bring it!

But I still must earn them: vacuum 2 bedrooms, living room, dining room.

-30-

Oh, good grief!

First Grammie muttered: "This has gone quite far enough!"

Then she lowered the boom on my cousins and me. Every family holiday gathering. Entertain yourselves, our parents said. Can do. Did.

"Far enough" rose up today when for the second straight week, there were no Pillsbury cinnemon rolls at Safeway.

I need an emoji but there aren't any angry enough to illustrate my outrage. Sunday morning without hot cinnemon rolls.

"Sunday Morning Coming Down," as Kristofferson wrote for Cash. For himself. For Willie. For the world.

On the other hand, I scored 3 boxes of Kleenex. I'm tired of blowing my nose on TP, of which I scored a 30-pack at Costco a couple weeks ago.

Out of the house for the second day in a row. My 14-day waiting period resets. Again.

Yesterday was the first visit to my new PCP, Abby, PA. Her office is practicing safety that's not over the top extreme. I was greeted by a young woman in mask, gown, gloves just inside the office's front door. ID, appointment data, temperature, blood pressure, stethoscope.

I was directed to drive to the rear of the building, and wait at the third door on the left.

After 5 minutes, the fourth door opened. Abby appeared, a touch-screen tablet in gloved hands. Mask, gown, cap. Detailed conversation about why I was there, and other familiar items. A formal title seems a bit much for somebody gowned in yellow, blue, and white.

I now have a PCP! Thanks, Northern Nevada Medical Group.

 -30-

Slow shallow breaths

Thanks to the young couple next door, we now have cloth masks, made by the gentleman's family business, which in good times makes curtains. Big curtains, for casino showrooms, and bigger.

I wore mine to the grocery store/pharmacy today. It makes reading through my bifocals neck-twistingly funky, but I didn't pass out from lack of air.

Between the blue plaid mask and electric-blue rubber gloves, I was quite fashionable. Which I have never been before.

They sewed 150 or so masks for a local medical center, but kept a couple for us.

Sweet.

-30-

Cute on the hoof

I don't particularly like horses, but the herd that hangs out across the Truckee River from where I live has a new baby, which I saw today for the first time.

White face and feet, mahogany body, legs that reach the sky.

Live free, little one.

-30-

I'm healthy? Yeah, sure

My hypochondria is raging. My day generally begins sitting at the kitchen table while a life-long smoker sucks on burning tobacco sticks to start her day.

So, I hope, what the morning coughing means is that I'm inhaling poison, not reacting to a killer virus. That coughing started months ago.

And the tickle in my sinuses and throat are familiar, hated, seasonal allergies. And the sneezing fits, usually three in a row, twice a day? Damn allergies?

We have no oral thermometer, or any other kind. Is that fever? Is it my imagination?

Excuse me, I have to go sneeze. Again.

💀

-30-

Fists will fly

There will be massive incidents of domestic violence, what with the Big Shutdown.

Millions of women will be beaten to bloody pulps, or murdered by their drunken, useless men. The carnage is preventable, but first the cops have to care about women.

On the vaguely brighter side, there's a baby boom coming in 9 months.

-30-

Side dish

I figured out why I will only grudgingly vote for Joe Biden if he's the sacrificial lamb staked out on DJT's blood altar.

In the movie Americans live in, Biden's the sidekick, not the star. Chewbaca, Samwise Gamgee, Dr. John Watson, Robin, Donkey, Groot.

Great characters, brave, smart, and strong. But not the star.

###

The South Carolina primary's today. I don't any longer dig deep into political commentary, analysis, or hard-news stories. I don't want my brain to explode. Overload is imminent.

But, surely somebody out there commented on the low probability of Southern Crackers voting for Sanders or Bloomberg. Christian Fundamentalists worship DJT the adulterer, tax cheat, and con artist. But how many will vote for anybody of the Jewish persuasion?

Most of them don't even understand that, according to their Holy Bible, Jesus, the guy whose name's tossed around constantly, was a Jew.

-30-

Smashing on the railroad

2:40 p.m.: Amtrak just rolled past, westbound, with its three locomotives, two baggage cars, and nine passenger cars led by a UP engine. It would have been here at 10 a.m. if not for the concrete truck on the tracks near Derby Dam.

The truck is trashed, and so is the front of the lead locomotive, as shown by photos on the Reno TV stations web sites.

Amtrak said the truck was on the crossing first. Oops.

Minor injuries, the TV stations said.

The 78 passengers will have something to talk about when Donner Lake's scenery gets boring.

-30-

All who wander are not lost

Just most of them.

Got an update today on the wandering caravan.

The gentleman who makes Canyon General Improvement District and Rainbow Bend function was called out around 8 a.m. Saturday because one semi took out a fire hydrant. Another rolled over lawns.

Storey County sheriff's deputies escorted them out of Rainbow Bend. They did indeed expect to use the back road to Mustang and around the wreck.

CGID protector didn't know what happened to the passenger cars.

No reverse Donner Party. Darn.

-30-

The dark night of Nevada

Ah, another interesting event that I will never know the outcome of.

Last night at 11 o’clock, there was yet another wreck on I-80 eastbound at Mustang, about a half mile from where I live in Rainbow Bend, Lockwood.

At 11:30 p.m., I heard strange noises in front of the house. I opened the front door to see a semi (C.R. England logo) crawling past, eastbound, followed by passenger cars, two more semis and several more cars.

One loaded semi weighs in around 33 tons. The three semis I saw rolled over a bridge with a  weight limit of 10 tons. Urgh.
 
The strange noise was the semis hitting speed bumps. There are speed bumps galore on Ave de la Couleurs (and Rainbow Bend as a whole) because the arrogant lunkheads out here ignore the 15 mph speed limit. People walking, walking dogs, children on bikes, and other activities, not usually at 11:30 p.m. Anytime of day or night, the lunkheads race past at 40 mph.

There were tail lights stopped on the freeway, which always backs up after a wreck. But this traffic was further east than usual.

NDOT’s incident report site listed the 11 p.m. wreck, with reopening estimated at 2 a.m. Traffic was being turned around at the Mustang exit.

From Mustang, there is a path to the east, Frontage Road to McCarran Ranch Road to Waltham Way and a freeway entrance. I wouldn’t drive that route at night. The roads, while paved, are not lighted and direction signs aren’t clear. It’s gotta be more than five miles. Waltham leads to USA Parkway and another freeway connection.

Maybe the parade past my house aimed for Peri Ranch Road, which runs into Mustang, where Frontage Road starts. What Google Maps doesn’t show is that there is a 100-foot elevation change from Rainbow Bend to PRR. Only two ways to get on PRR and both are steep.

I thought about following the parade, just to see the semis go up that narrow, steep hill, which requires a hard turn left or right at the top. I think there’s a streetlight there. For passenger cars, no problem.

If I weren’t lazy and a coward, I’d love to ride a toboggan down that hill in the snow. If we ever have snow again. The biggest challenge would be to stop before you land in the Truckee River.

I wouldn’t drive Peri Ranch Road in the dark, either. It is narrow, not striped, loaded with speed bumps (the lunkheads have a large feeding ground), and not lit.

I went to bed instead, but couldn’t sleep. The last time I looked out, 1:45 a.m., the eastbound freeway was open.

Might that tiny, lost caravan be wandering through the river canyon, covering ground that the westbound Donner Party rolled over?

Is it wrong of me to hope?

-30-

Now here this!

There was a spare replacement part on the shelf at the hearing-aid place! I got my ear-piece back in less than 24 hours.

Hooray to LeMay Hearing of Reno.

###

How much does it cost to emigrate to New Zealand?

One big lottery win and I'm outta here.

###

I thought about going to a Nevada presidential caucus one time, but my sanity came back.

Also, participants have to be registered in one party or the other. Non-partisan suits me fine.

 -30-

Me 1, Bullet 0

My hearing aid went silent last week. I found out today at the ear doctor's office that a wire broke. A replacement wire was ordered; arrives in about 10 days.

The 3-year warranty expires in 2.5 months.

The house is strangely quiet, except for the telephone. And the cat, when he wants food.

-30-

Sorry for your loss

I'm in the position again of watching people grieve over a national hero that I know next to nothing about. Happens frequently.

I'm sure K.B. was a good (mostly) person and great athlete.

But it is powerfully annoying to scan TV channels and encounter show after show about how wonderful he was. They leave my emotions untouched.

As with the murder of John Lennon, the biggest loss is his potential for more great acts. And the potential of his daughter.

Farewell, Black Mamba.

-30-

Stewart the Imp rocks

Gave in to Fate and watched "Star Trek: Picard" last night. My mind is rightfully boggled.

###

Pointless meandering on screen

Gave in to Fate and saw "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker." There's so much wrong I don't know where to start, so I won't.

I remember, though, when "Star Wars" movies were fun. None of the characters dashed around like they were on Meth.

It must be wrong to not like a character because he's played by a homely, on the verge of ugly, actor. Talented, but Sweet Lord he's hard on the eyes. His character had the only human moment in the entire carnival: Saying "ouch" when he slammed into Death Star wreckage.

Best part: the tickets were a gift; all I paid for was popcorn and soda.

###

My hearing aid crapped out yesterday. Checked the paperwork; it has a 3-year warranty. Guess when I got it. Two years and three months ago.

On the other hand, it is restful in the house.

-30-