2023: The Drain Is Clogged

[Silver Sorrow]

To reinforce the old forum thread's implication that the world is a toilet badly in need of a plunger.

Anyway.

On a somewhat related theme: back in August of last year, I was informed that, thanks to my family's medical history, I should have a medical procedure that I will not call by name here, as the name it has fails to fully encompass the horror of the ordeal.

Let me be clear: it's not the procedure itself that was the problem; I was out like a light for the entire thing. No, the worst part was the "prep solution" that I was directed to drink.

I've had a tough time trying to find the right terms to describe the prep stuff (which goes by the cutesy name of "GoLYTELY"), but I finally settled on the following: it was like drinking seawater that someone had been electrocuted in.

And I had to drink 4 liters of this hellish brew, 8 ounces every 10 minutes. They say there are all kinds of ways to get around it, to make it tolerable blah blah blah. No. Nothing would make this taste better. Even if a buzzard had taken a giant meaty dump in the jug (for example), it could not have tasted worse.

Of course, later I was given to understand the doctor found that it didn't quite do the job, so she said that for my next "procedure" -- which will be done next year (that family history thing, remember?) -- I should drink EIGHT liters of that mephitic mess.

To which I said, "No, uh-uh, no way, you're just gonna have to kill me and find out what was wrong with me at the autopsy."

They thought I was joking. I'm such a kidder. Aren't I.

[Silver Sorrow]

Taking a short break from flaying myself alive...because the only thing I dread about a new computer: getting everything back the way it was.

Uninstall OneDrive, that's the #1 priority. Everything after that is a nightmare of installing this and that, and...I think I must've typed my friggin' email two dozen times in the first hour alone.

My only issue so far is getting Malwarebytes working again -- it seems they can't activate anything, even though I have a premium account. I had a bit of trouble with Steam, which wants to install in program files x86, but I don't WANT it there, I want it in c games steam. Is that so hard to do?

No, I just have to PAY ATTENTION. Hard to do on two hours' worth of sleep, but that's my fault entirely. Silly me for having screwed up sleep patterns, I know. Anyway, Steam's sorted out now.

Oh, wait...gotta deal with Nvidia. Swell.

Further updates as events warrant.

[Silver Sorrow]

Idle musing for the day...re: The Book Of Boba Fett and Star Wars.

1. Temuera Morrison's too old to be playing Boba Fett; the show is set five years after ROTJ...but he's sixty years old and thirty pounds heavier than when he fell into the Sarlaac?

1a. His teeth are so white and perfect that it was all I could think of in his scenes.

1b. Don't bother arguing about him aging fast due to him being a clone; Boba was an unenhanced clone.

1c. They didn't have any Kiwi actors that are younger?

1d. While I'm thinking about it...the re-dubbing of Fett's lines in ESB: stupid or moronic?

2. The show is a testament to Boba Fett being a clueless, ineffectual idiot.

3. The thing was so bad that they had to cut away from Boba Fett entirely to set up the premise for the Mandalorian's season 3...because baby Yoda and Ahsoka are far more interesting.

4. I wanted to like it, but that just didn't happen. The only bright spot was Ming-na Wen, who isn't paid enough for how great she is.

5. The gang on eye-searingly vibrant hover-Vespas made something inside of me die.

6. They should've just teamed up the insanely astounding Fennec Shand (not that I'm biased) and Black Chrysanthemum (or whatever...the cool Wookiee) for a series.

7. THAT would have been awesome.

8. Piss on Dave Filoni and Kathleen Kennedy. And a big ol' middle finger for Disney itself.

9. I'm not even going to go into how much I hated the last three movies.

10. Or how boring I thought Andor was. The guy dies in Rogue One...who gives a crap about his character? I sure as hell don't.

11. The Clone Wars series...people go on and on about how AWESOME it is, but I guess I'm just not a "true" fan. All I saw was seven or eight seasons (each season being made up of 137 episodes, or so it seemed) of a subject that even ten year old me would find mind-numbingly boring.

12. I'm thinking of ordering a pizza for lunch.

13. That sounds good.

14. Doesn't it, though?

[Silver Sorrow]

I've never been a big fan of Barclay James Harvest, but I liked a couple of their songs...okay, back up. "Who?" you ask. And you should ask. They weren't the greatest of prog bands, but they had some decent songs here and there. (Look up "Hymn" and "Poor Man's Moody Blues," for example.)

So every so often I'll force myself to listen to a random prog band's back catalog, because apparently I haven't suffered enough in my life (I draw the line at King Crimson and Gong, however). Still, there are some interesting things to discover. But I've never been conversant with BJH's repertoire...so when this song started up, I was struck by a bit of deja vu.

Why? Well...compare it to this:

Next up: I will point out how part of Yes' "Roundabout" and the the guitar solo from Genesis' "Me & Virgil" were directly influenced by the Byrds' "Eight Miles High."

...or not. Probably not. Most likely not.

[Lord Mantrid]

So every so often I'll force myself to listen to a random prog band's back catalog

I'd like to suggest Triumvirat as there are only seven albums total, however if you want to save yourself the trouble of mostly disappointment then I'd stick primarily with the Helmut Köllen years which only encompasses two albums.

[Silver Sorrow]

Ah...good, thanks. I have some Triumvirat that I got off alt.binaries.prog (or whatever it was) a LONG time ago, and they're on a CD-R somewhere...I think it'd be easier just to track 'em down on Discogs or Amazon. But I never got around to listening to their stuff.

I'm kind leery about Disappoint Prog, as I've come to call most prog bands...but then again, I'm just an old grump.

BJH was one...I'd call 'em one of those "almost" bands, meaning "they were *almost* great, but fell short somehow." Charming, I know. Who am I to judge? Ah, well. I started on IQ at one point, but after listening to one of their most acclaimed albums -- The Wake -- in the car during a long trip, I seriously considered crossing into oncoming traffic.

I was in a seriously bad mood, I admit.

I'm almost afraid to try a road trip with the Flower Kings' back catalog...although I liked Stardust We Are...and Space Revolver, sort of.

[Silver Sorrow]

8. Piss on Dave Filoni and Kathleen Kennedy. And a big ol' middle finger for Disney itself.

Well, damn...Dave Filoni was misquoted (purposely?) by someone, so he's still okay. Sorry, Dave. The rest of my statement stands, though.

This retraction brought to you by the Council Of Regrets.

[Silver Sorrow]

"[...]so he's still okay."

Relatively speaking, of course. I saw the first episode of Tales of the Jedi, and...well, being pissed on is too good for him.

[Silver Sorrow]

A while back I was strong-armed by family into retrieving a couple of boxes of books and Xmas decorations my dad had in a storage space they were going to tear down, or something (I don't know, I don't live out there and I really don't care what they're doing with old buildings)...strong-armed, I say, because I didn't want them.

"Just throw 'em away!" I said.

"Naw, naw...you might find something you want!"

"How many ways can I say 'I. Don't. Want. Them!'??"

So anyway, I came home with these stupid dusty boxes and ended up throwing most of their contents away immediately. (Here's a hint: my parents put these things in storage because they didn't want them either but couldn't bring themselves to just throw them away. It's that simple.) The Xmas decorations were easy to part with...what am I going to do with a plastic centerpiece? Wear it as a festive hat?

The books, however...well. They were divided into three categories: my college textbooks (very few, as I was not academically-inclined), my mother's college textbooks (extremely miscellaneous subjects: plant biology, studies in western civilization literature, photography, etc.), and my dad's computer books.

Since I am very slow to rid myself of the clutter around me (I dream of it someday collapsing and smothering me once and for all), I found that I still had their books in a pile on a table in a room I rarely enter. But I've been slowly cleaning this room out to turn it into a "library" (translation: this is where I'll stack all of the goddamn books my readaholic parents accumulated over thirty years of living in this house), and I had to make a decision as to what I'll do with these books.

Conclusion? Into the polycart they'll go. Because no one wants any of these books. At all. There's just no market for them. Absurd, you say? There's always a market for books, no matter what, you insist? Okay, non-believer...I took a pic of a few of my dad's books. Just for you. Here you go:

You cannot view this attachment.

And these aren't even the oldest ones...

On a related note: my parents also stored books in their shared closet (it's a good-sized walk-in). I'm cleaning that out too, little by little. Besides her shitload of Bible-related stuff, Mom had a complete collection of Nancy Drew books, in hardback (not worth much, really). Dad had a shitload of sci-fi hardbacks and computer and college textbooks. I don't even want to think about the boxes of books in the garage...

And I'm not angling for any sort of payday for this crap. My uncles keep encouraging me to post it all on Facebook marketplace and sell! sell! sell!

To which I said, "Tell you what: I'll just let all this go to hell and when I drop dead, you guys can sell it all on Facebook. Mmmkay?"

On a somewhat related sidenote: a couple of years ago my cousin asked me if I had a keyboard he could borrow. I was happy. "Yeah! I got a BUNCH of keyboards! Come get 'em!" I had six of the things in a box not ten feet away from me at the time. (And these were the ones that you can actually use with modern systems without adapters; the others in the garage? NO.) So I sent him a pic of them and he gets back to me with a laugh.

"No," he said, "I meant a music keyboard."

"I am going to destroy you," I told him.

And yes, I had an old *music* keyboard he could borrow (thanks again, to my dad's lukewarm attempts to futz around with a home recording studio about thirty years back). I tried to get my cousin to take the computer keyboards too, but he wouldn't.

Oh, well.

[Silver Sorrow]

A Couple Of Questions About The Mandalorian

One: Did Axe Woves really achieve escape velocity from Mandalore's atmosphere with a jetpack? Is that even possible?

Two: if so, then how come the other Mandalorians were unable to catch the flying dragon monster thing that snatched that kid? They never can catch it, they always run out of fuel. But that one guy can blast off into orbit?

Before I ask #3, an observation: the writers really wrote themselves into a corner with the whole "never-remove-the-helmet" crap. It's just stupid.

Three: if Mando never removes his helmet in front of others, why bother cultivating a mustache? (Why bother shaving at all, really?) Facial hair is itchy as hell. And what if his head itches with a bunch of people in the room?

How does his morning routine go? He wakes up, shaves, trims his little 'stache, jams his helmet on, and then goes about his day? And that's assuming he has access to the means to do so, as well as his own apartment or something. Wouldn't it have been more accurate if, in the big face reveal in season 1, he had a big ol' Duck Dynasty beard under that helmet?

This last question isn't Mandalorian related, but it explains everything: do you know the signs of someone who is trying to exist on far too little sleep?

[Silver Sorrow]

This one might be kind of gross and/or offensive, but...oh, well.

HUMAN INTERACTION

SCENE ONE

PERSON: [snorts, grimaces] I got a bit of a sore throat.

ME: [holding up a bag of cough drops] You want a Hall's? They're--

PERSON: [waving dismissively] Nahhh, I'm fine. I just--

ME: ...want to snork down flaming snot every few minutes while making gargoyle faces, yeah, I know.

END SCENE

--~~--

SCENE TWO

PERSON: [70+ year old aunt] Why are you using a cane?? You're too young to be using a cane!

ME: [going through a minor recurrence of a back problem I've had since I was a teenager] You know what? You're absolutely right. So tomorrow I'm going to St. Jude's with a megaphone to sit out in the parking lot and scream up at the kids inside that they're too young to have cancer.

END SCENE

So long story short, I'm not invited to family gatherings very much anymore. Who knew that being unpleasant could only benefit me?

[Silver Sorrow]

There should be some sort of floating text balloon thing above everyone's heads that activates whenever you talk to a person. In this text balloon would be information as to how many times you've told a specific story to that person (based on keywords, perhaps). Included would be stats concerning if the person was listening or not the first time, as well as how many of your teeth you'll lose (rough estimate) if you tell that damn story again.

This may save many, many lives.

[Starfox]

There should be some sort of floating text balloon thing above everyone's heads that activates whenever you talk to a person.

I'm totally on board with that concept I think it should also be extended. There should be warning in messaging systems telling you based on previous messages you had with a person how likely it is that they won't give a fuck.

Imagine such a system that would tell you "Probability of a coherent and thoughtful answer: 0.5%". Then you could just go with:

Me: "How are you?"
Person: "Fuck off!"
Me: "OK then, pretty much expected... Bye!"

Or you could even spare you the effort to type anything.

[Starfox]

One: Did Axe Woves really achieve escape velocity from Mandalore's atmosphere with a jetpack? Is that even possible?

Sure, with a good additional kick in the ass, you can achieve anything. Basic Newton's (third?, yeah I think it's third) law application right there

do you know the signs of someone who is trying to exist on far too little sleep?

Yep, when I look in a mirror these days. Not pretty...

[Starfox]

I'm trying to keep up there... bear with me

(And these were the ones that you can actually use with modern systems without adapters; the others in the garage? NO.)

Actually, as shocking as this may seem, my current gaming rig, just a little over one year old, has a PS/2 port so you can connect antediluvian mouses and keyboards directly to it. How comes? I really don't know. Possibly a guy at the factory looked at the motherboard backplate and went "hey, there's still some space there, just beside the USB ports. How about a PS/2 plug? So all the old keyboards everyone keeps jamming in their attic and garage could finally see some use".

That said, I didn't try the thing (I don't have a keyboard or a mouse that old anymore); Chances are it's just a fake put there to make people talk about it. "A PS/2 port? On a modern computer? How weird is that?"