- Pro-tip – When giving yourself a haircut, always make sure you put the right-sized guard on before you make the first cut.
- My hair’s been shorter than this, but not by much and not in a long while.
- Irish Woman is quite unhappy with the results, but it’s only temporary.
- If the NFL is moving the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas, have the legal fees for getting court permission for the players to leave California, as well as the relocation of the spouses, children, and parole officers, been factored in?
- Apparently there were marches in cities in several countries today, with some getting quite violent.
- Somebody needs to remind the French national police what a “whiff of grapeshot” is for.
- Funny, you don’t hear about marches like this in truly poor countries. I guess the working man in Haiti or Congo has too much going on just keeping a job and making money.
- Work on “Lady of Eyre” continues. Should be ready to go in the next week or two.
- It appears that there is a personnel changeover happening at Fox News, with a prominent on-air person getting the sack, along with several executives, because several of them had an issue with acting professionally toward folks of the fairer sex while at work.
- If only the BBC had been so quick to shed bad actors, no matter how glacial Fox has been.
- Of course, I’m sure nobody from a news outlet that’s involved in such unseemly business could fail upward and land a great job at another news outlet.
All posts in category Uncategorized
Musings
Posted by daddybear71 on May 1, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/05/01/musings-238/
Book Review – Rimworld – Into the Green
The latest from Jim Curtis, Rimworld – Into the Green, is out, and it’s a great yarn.
After a chance encounter with Dragoons and Traders turns a routine planet exploration into a rout that kills his team and his career, Lieutenant Ethan Fargo, medically retired, wants nothing more than to hole up in the backwater Rimworld he’d explored and enjoy a quiet retirement far from people or problems.
Unfortunately, he’s about to find out that he’s not as retired as he wants to be, and that his new home system comes with dangers, politics, and Dragoon sightings of its own. What promised to be a boring retirement will turn out to be anything but.
Into the Green occurs in the same universe as Curtis’ earlier short work, Stranded, in which humanity struggles against the voracious alien Dragoons and their human toadies, the Traders. The main character, Fargo, is a veteran of both combat and exploration who returns to a nice, quiet planet to retire and enjoy the rest of his life. Of course, the universe is having none of that, and soon he is embroiled in conflict with both invaders and turncoats.
This is a fast-moving story, and I enjoyed every page. If you’re looking for something for the beach, the cabin, or the lake and you enjoy sci-fi adventures, you’ll like Into the Green.
Posted by daddybear71 on May 1, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/05/01/book-review-rimworld-into-the-green/
Musings
- Irish Woman Wildlife Rule #1 – Do not feed the Canada Goose that is visiting the yard.
- Irish Woman Wildlife Rule #2 – If you feed the Canada Goose that is visiting the yard, do not include blueberries and sliced grapes in the food.
- Irish Woman Wildlife Rule #3 – If you include blueberries and sliced grapes in the food you give the Canada Goose that is visiting the yard, do not include bits of hamburger buns and cat food.
- Irish Woman Wildlife Rule #4 – If you include cat food and bits of hamburger buns with the fruit you are feeding the Canada Goose visiting the yard, do not attempt to pet it while it eats.
- Irish Woman Wildlife Rule #5 – If you pet the Canada Goose that is visiting the yard while it eats the fruit, bread, and cat food you have given it, do not name it or it will become a pet.
- Irish Woman Wildlife Rule #6 – If your new pet leaves the inevitable results from being fed blueberries, sliced grapes, hamburger buns, and cat food behind it on the driveway, porch, and sidewalk, it is not DaddyBear’s responsibility to clean it up.
- Unless we are expecting a monsoon, then no, the rain will not take care of it.
- In related news, we have a new pet. Boo named it “Moose the Goose.” It has white patches on its cheeks, likes hand-prepared organic fruit and bread with its cat food, and really doesn’t care for Siamese cats.
- If it hangs out too long, I will do experiments to figure out how much it likes Labrador Retrievers.
- Ladies, you are all beautiful and attractive in your own way. You bring light to a dreary world, and we all benefit from your presence.
- However, if you’re old enough to have owned the first album of a band that is taking its 40th anniversary tour, you really ought to be honest with yourself before dressing in the same clothes you wore when you saw them in high school.
Posted by daddybear71 on April 27, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/27/musings-237/
Musings
- DaddyBear’s college financing fix – Four years of public university study is free to the student, but we are going to put a 33% tax on the first 10 years of that student’s income that is more than double the national poverty level.
- It goes up to a 50% tax on any income if it takes you more than 10 years to get to that income level. This should incentivize folks to get a degree that leads to gainful employment and to get off their butts and get a job after graduation.
- You can get that tax rebated to you if, after five years of working at that income level, you quit and take a lower-paying, but important, job, such as social work or inner-city / rural teaching, for five years.
- We will defray the start-up and maintenance costs of the program by putting a 15% tax on the income of the top 10% most highly paid employees at state colleges and universities.
- I might even be amenable to a special tax on ‘instructors’ or ‘professors’ who do not devote 75% of their work week to personally giving instruction, grading student work, or meeting with students to work on their education.
- Participation is, of course, voluntary, but I don’t want to hear a peep about how unfair it is that folks have to pay to get their degrees in Klingon Studies or whatever if they choose to go with how we finance college now.
- When I was a kid, we were told that nuclear winter would tip us over into a new ice age. Now, we are worried about retreating glaciers and melting polar ice caps.
- Am I the only one who sees a possible solution to the new problem by invoking the old problem?
- The Kentucky Derby is in a little less than two weeks, which means that the drought of available manpower and employee attention, which started when the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament brackets came out, will soon be over.
Posted by daddybear71 on April 24, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/24/musings-236/
On Poetry
I hope you all enjoyed this past year’s posts. It all started when I realized that I was having difficulty finding a few quiet moments every day to just think, and I decided that a year’s devotional would be good for me. In addition to a little daily scripture, I decided I’d throw in some poetry to get my mind stretched back out.
Poetry does a good job of reminding me of things which ought to be remembered, and to show me that the problems we face now are not new. When a poem written centuries ago speaks to the grind, the heartaches, or the rancor of your day, you understand that men and women through the ages lived through the same things as you.
Anyway, thanks for coming along with me on my daily mental calisthenics.
Posted by daddybear71 on April 24, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/24/on-poetry/
Insults and Refutations
The student government of Western Kentucky University recently passed a resolution calling for free tuition for students of African descent. The real President of the University responded here, but I thought I’d put my own spin on it.
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (KDDY)— Western Kentucky University Chancellor Daddy J. Bear has responded to a recent student government association resolution to support reparations for black students.
The resolution’s purpose was to establish full and free access to WKU for black students, and well as free tuition, and to acknowledge slavery is a “debt that will never be paid.”
Mister Bear said in a statement released Thursday:
“Are you out of your ever-loving minds? How in the bloody blue pluperfect <CENSORED> did you all get into this university? Get the head of Admissions in here, now!”
“Apparently the members of the Student Government aren’t being given enough homework, because they had the time to pass this drivel. In order to head off the inevitable passing of similar wrongheaded ‘legislation,’ allow me to clarify that their resolution is is a waste of paper and electrons, which is probably a good way to describe their academic performance. I have read the SGA resolution, and I am ashamed that they have learned so little at the University that they would think that we would adopt any such policy.”
“I’ve spent much of the last year engaging in dialogue with black student leaders on campus, which has led to a greater understanding and appreciation of their experiences and priorities on my part, as I hope that they have learned that my priority is their education, not their feelings. I want to reiterate that our goal at the University is to prepare our students for entry into the job market as useful, thoughtful, and properly trained professionals, not as poorly-groomed dolts who think that a meaningless resolution passed after many speeches cribbed from the 23rd All-Soviet Veterinary Conference of 1952 will do a lick of good for race relations.”
“As we continue to try to educate those who think that such half-baked ideas are worth their time, we will focus on those things that help all students succeed: scholarship, personal discipline, and challenging curriculum. We will direct resources, energy and effort toward those methods that are responsible, practical and proven to achieve student success, and continue to point and laugh at the Twitter activists, perpetually offended, and those who think that silly hats can change the world.”
Posted by daddybear71 on April 22, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/22/insults-and-refutations-7/
A Year of Poetry – Day 364
Down in a green and shady bed,
A modest violet grew;
Its stalk was bent, it hung its head
As if to hide from view.
And yet it was a lovely flower,
Its colour bright and fair;
It might have graced a rosy bower,
Instead of hiding there.
Yet thus it was content to bloom,
In modest tints arrayed;
And there diffused a sweet perfume,
Within the silent shade.
Then let me to the valley go
This pretty flower to see;
That I may also learn to grow
In sweet humility.
— Jane Taylor, The Violet
Posted by daddybear71 on April 22, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/22/a-year-of-poetry-day-364/
A Year of Poetry – Day 363
The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy,
And wit me warns to shun such snares as threaten mine annoy;
For falsehood now doth flow, and subjects’ faith doth ebb,
Which should not be if reason ruled or wisdom weaved the web.
But clouds of joys untried do cloak aspiring minds,
Which turn to rain of late repent by changed course of winds.
The top of hope supposed the root upreared shall be,
And fruitless all their grafted guile, as shortly ye shall see.
The dazzled eyes with pride, which great ambition blinds,
Shall be unsealed by worthy wights whose foresight falsehood finds.
The daughter of debate that discord aye doth sow
Shall reap no gain where former rule still peace hath taught to know.
No foreign banished wight shall anchor in this port;
Our realm brooks not seditious sects, let them elsewhere resort.
My rusty sword through rest shall first his edge employ
To poll their tops that seek such change or gape for future joy.
— Queen Elizabeth I, The Doubt of Future Foes
Posted by daddybear71 on April 21, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/21/a-year-of-poetry-day-363/
Musings
- You know, for a guy who makes his living dealing with technology, I’m really starting to hate technology.
- No, that’s OK, mister work phone, please spontaneously reboot and reset yourself to factory settings.
- Of course, miss laptop screen, it’s perfectly fine for you to start having fuzzy weird digital ghosts at odd moments while I’m scrolling around.
- Oh, no, please, excuse me, mister TV remote. It’s entirely my fault that you have decided that you will only work at angles ranging from 0 to 15 degrees from center of the television screen.
- The peanut butter eggs in the white wrappers are not, in fact, ‘diet’ peanut butter eggs.
- I stand corrected.
- I can wait another week or two for the movie I ordered to arrive because Amazon has it on backorder, or I can cancel that order and go to the local Big Box Retail Cooperative and buy a copy there.
- The downside of waiting is, well, waiting.
- The downside of buying local is that I’ll have to go to Big Box Retail Cooperative and deal with, shudder, people.
- Oh, well, movie’ll get here when it gets here.
- One advantage of working from home a couple days a week is that my lunches are of higher quality.
- You see, when I take my lunch to work, I usually just have leftovers microwaved on a paper plate.
- When I’m at home, I can get fancy and use an actual dish to heat up my leftovers. Perhaps I can even use real silverware.
- Not only that, but I can have tap water cooled in my very own refrigerator. At work, I have tap water that’s cooled with ice chunks like a peasant.
- Apparently, “‘Tear down the flood walls, bulldoze it flat, and salt the earth with radium” was not the answer the young lady with the clipboard was looking for when she asked me what I thought the mayor could do to make Louisville better.
- When that answer seemed to confuse her, I told her to just put down that I thought we ought to hire more teachers.
- I saw an ad the other night for a company called ‘Dads Heating and Cooling’. I imagine their service calls involve a lot of demands for you to get out of their light and to fetch them the 3/8’s.
Posted by daddybear71 on April 20, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/20/musings-235/
A Year of Poetry – Day 360
“What is the real good?’
I asked in musing mood.
Order, said the law court;
Knowledge, said the school;
Truth, said the wise man;
Pleasure, said the fool;
Love, said the maiden;
Beauty, said the page;
Freedom, said the dreamer;
Home, said the sage;
Fame, said the soldier;
Equity, the seer;—
Spake my heart full sadly:
‘The answer is not here.’
Then within my bosom
Softly this I heard:
‘Each heart holds the secret:
Kindness is the word.’
— John Boyle O’Reilly, What is Good
Posted by daddybear71 on April 18, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/18/a-year-of-poetry-day-360/
DaddyBear
DaddyBear’s Den 