Well, I laughed
Going through some old books in the work library today and I ran across a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. I guarantee you know this guy, whether you know you know him or not. He was the originator of many a familiar phrase, like “pursuit of the almighty dollar”, “the pen is mightier than the sword”, “dweller on the threshold” and “the great unwashed” (I pinched all those off his Wikipedia page).
He’s also the guy who famously opened a novel with the words “it was a dark and stormy night.” In all fairness to the guy, it wasn’t yet a cliché in 1830.
You may or may not know that he inspired an annual competition – the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest – which challenges contestants “to write an atrocious opening sentence to the worst novel never written.” This year’s winner was chosen from 6,000 entries. Are you ready?
She was a beautiful woman; more specifically she was the kind of beautiful woman who had an hourlong skincare routine that made her look either ethereal or like a glazed donut, depending on how attracted to her you were.
Some of the others are pretty funny, too. Check ’em out – and have a good weekend!
January 12, 2024 — 7:22 pm
Comments: 10
You are not ready for this story
I had frequent earaches as a child. Miserable things. My father had them, too. He loved to explain what they did for earaches in his day, pre-antibiotics: they’d take a scalpel and puncture the eardrum to release pressure (otherwise they feared the infection would break inward, into the brain). They did that to him multiple times.
It was his favorite “walking five miles uphill barefoot in the snow to school” story.
Years later, as a teenager, he was practicing for the statewide cornet championships. He was at that point, he said, the third highest ranking cornet player in Tennessee. He said he was a master of triple tonguing. Anyhoo, you can see where this is going: his poor scarred eardrum exploded during practice (I’d like to think during a particularly enthusiastic triple tonguing session). Thus ended his dream of being…the second or first cornet, I guess.
Many years later, he had a surgical eardrum replacement. A tympanoplasty (technically a myringoplasty, since it was just the eardrum). They took a little piece of one of his veins and scraped it really thin and stuck it in his ear. These days it’s done with microscopes, but this would have been about 1966, so they probably did it with rocks or something.
I remember seeing him in the hospital with an enormous head bandage that made him look like a spaceman.
He got some hearing back, but he was pretty deaf and could never get on with hearing aids. This was unfortunate for my stepmother as he loved to make music and believed himself to be a great talent, but could only hear the loud instruments. Bagpipes. Banjos. French horn.
I’m not going anywhere with this story. I just wanted to talk about my father’s ear. Mine is a little better today, I think.
January 11, 2024 — 7:47 pm
Comments: 5
It’s the oddest sensation
For the second time this year, I woke up a couple of days ago with one ear completely blocked. The first time around, over-the-counter ear drops sorted it out in a couple of days. This time, I’m not having much luck.
In fact, the first round of eardrops made it worse.
Now, two or three days in, the weirdest thing is happening. I have maybe 10% hearing in my left ear, so my brain has decided all sounds are coming from my right. Uncle B turned on the radio in the kitchen and I heard music come out of the livingroom.
It’s freaking me out, y’all.
Now, I know my audience. I’m sure at least one of you coots has lost more hearing in one ear than the other. Is this just how it works?
January 10, 2024 — 7:41 pm
Comments: 16
Ugh.
Apparently, I have stolen this meme from @shitheadsteve
Been in a Zoom work meeting all evening. You haven’t lived until you’ve hosted twelve elderly English people arguing parliamentary procedures.
Uncle B was like, you charge for this, right? And I was like !!!
It honestly never occurred to me.
January 9, 2024 — 8:09 pm
Comments: 24
All good things must come to an end
Awoo! Awoo! Pity a poor weasel what am going back to work tomorrow!
On the other hand – never mind. I feel sorry enough for both of us.
Still, it’s a good sign that I had a nice time. And I did. I promise you, you’ve never known anyone with more talent at doing nothing at all than me. I was born to be bone idle.
Ah, well.
January 3, 2024 — 7:36 pm
Comments: 9
Happy solstice!
I know what you’re thinking – the Winter Solstice is the 21st. Well, I got all sorts of results from a search, but most agreed it falls on the 22nd in our neck of the woods this year. Stonehenge was covered in the usual LARPing hippies.
Solstice is important to me because chickens. My life revolves around moving chickens – mostly roosters – into and out of chicken runs. On the shortest day (ahem, today) the last chicken voluntarily goes in at around 3:30 and on the longest day it’s more like 9:30. What happens in between is similarly compressed or expanded.
Tomorrow, we pick up the turkey (it was an eye watering £75 this year) and a few other bits and pieces, and then we’re done. See you on the other side!
December 22, 2023 — 7:27 pm
Comments: 11
I know what I’m doing over the holidays
Backing up my Gmail account. Your storage allotment is across the whole platform, so when you fill it, it paralyzes your Drive, Gmail, Photos…everything. And they don’t tell you until it’s already full. And when you delete stuff, it doesn’t recognize it for up to 24 hours.
This is an account I don’t use for much but my phone camera, but that’s why it’s full. I have a few days of looking at chicken and cat pictures ahead.
December 20, 2023 — 6:51 pm
Comments: 1
Clever.
Zo! During its iPhone Whatever launch last week, Apple broadcast a cringey five minute video of a meeting between the Board of Directors (I guess) and Mother Nature (a sassy black woman, of course), wherein Apple explains how flipping green they are all over the place.
A comic named Lou Perez made a parody using much of the same footage, where the board brags that they’ve reduced their carbon footprint in the US by using child labor abroad.
None of which I care about. Well, I mean, child labor is awful, but I’m no activist. I’m interested in his production values. It says in the credits his part was shot on an iPhone, and it probably was. His footage blends seamlessly with Apple’s.
It’s probably worth ten minutes of your day to watch the Apple one and then watch the Perez one to see how perfect a guerilla takedown that is for, like, no money and a bit of clever editing. More of this, please.
December 19, 2023 — 7:05 pm
Comments: 1
Look up!
Best night of the Geminids meteor shower, the best meteor shower of the year. Except they happen in December when the weather is often pretty gross.
They happen from the 10th to the 20th, but they peak 13-14-15. Last year and next year, the peak will coincide with the full moon. But it’s a new moon in 2023.
It’s been cloudy so far this week. I haven’t dared go out and look up tonight. Wish me luck and have a good weekend!
December 15, 2023 — 6:49 pm
Comments: 5
They finally caught up with me
Spotted in town today – another Tennessee girl a long way from home. The decal on the side said Memphis Sheriff, which I don’t think is a thing. The Sheriff is a county force, so it should be Shelby County Sheriff’s office. Which is at odds with the Highway Patrol decal, a whole ‘nother thing.
This site tells me Oldsmobiles were rarely used as cop cars. And this Flickr photo of the exact same car identifies it as a 1975 Oldsmobile Delta 88.
I agree with the photographer. This isn’t a police car, it’s a “police car” – my grandma drove nothing but Delta 88s.
December 14, 2023 — 7:01 pm
Comments: 4