2025: Because. Just...Because.

[Silver Sorrow]

[I promise nothing, but I'll try to post more in this thread than I did in the 2024 thread.]

Well, 2025 is here -- MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S HOLY MAKE IT STOP -- and it's time to look forward to the new year with...I wouldn't call it "hope", exactly; more like a kind of flinching trepidation. I admit that my interest in the next 12 months is motivated more by morbid curiosity than anything else.

We've already kicked off the new year with two terrorist attacks...sort of; some might say that blowing up a Tesla UglyTruck outside Trump Tower might be just a misguided attempt at a protest (see? I could work for CNN!)...I can't criticize the symbolism, but for God's sake, just make a LEGO diorama or paint a bitchy landscape or something, huh?

I'm pretty sure someone's already started a betting pool on how many more we get before January's over. I'm really bad at gambling (which is why I stay away from casinos), so I'll abstain from making a guess.

Ah....well...this started out much darker than I had originally intended, so here's something fun, I guess you could say. It's still kind of dark, but not in a mass murder kind of way.

Anyway, I received a summons to jury duty today. Well...not me, actually. It's addressed to my mother. That opens up a couple of possibilities, but simplicity is sometimes best: just show up with ol' mom's urn. ("Look, yer Honor! She's in her fancy urn!")

Unfortunately, I'm just too goddamn tired to make the attempt. From what I read, I could simply write "deceased" on it and send it back or just email them. Boring, but I'm perfectly okay with that.

So that's just about the only interesting thing that's happened to me lately. Here's to another year of being an embittered recluse. NOW GET OFF MY LAWN YOU ROTTEN KIDS!

[Silver Sorrow]

"How...HOW...does it change the story of medieval Britain!??" I rage at the TV. "How," I rage further, "does a bunch of Stone Age clods ["Neolithic Nincompoops"?] piling up a bunch of rocks in rural England make any difference whatsoever to the overall story of Britain?"

Note to self: do not watch British archaeological documentaries when in a rotten mood.

To ponder further: when am I *not* in a rotten mood?

Even further pondering: why the hell am I watching British documentaries???

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that there was an answer -- otherwise, the odd woman narrating might not have asked it -- but I'd run out of patience and was in a full-on snit. So later, when I pick up where I left off, I just might have my answer. Or not. It may have been a rhetorical exercise, devised to trick those of us who are eating cheap pizza in front of the TV in lieu of a social life. To trick us into what, I have no idea. Still: devils!

I admit that I lack the vision of the historian/archaeologist/anthropologist/janitor when it comes to the significance of bits of broken pottery -- booooorrrrriiiiinnnnng -- but I tend to listen anyway, hoping against hope that some knowledge, perhaps even the merest glimmer, might somehow force its way through this chunk of intransigent rock I call a skull.

Earlier, the same show had a different group of people excavating around a monastery only to find a plague pit...not a big deal in England, I guess. For some reason, I was under the impression that such things weren't to be messed with, but this answer settled my questions. Still, I think I'd be wearing gloves the whole time.

But back to the Stone Age. The narrator fires questions at me as I watch, asking questions I have no way of answering. I am unprepared for this level of interrogation. "I assume you're going to answer these questions at some point and you're just pestering me right now," I grumble. She doesn't answer that because she can't hear me through the TV. This is key.

TV: "Here are the questions we intend to answer within the course of this program. Those of you with pizza sauce stains on your shirt, please exercise patience as we take forever to get to the goddamn point."

ME: "Buuuuurp. Ah ain't exercised nuthin' in 50 years! Whut're yew talkin' 'bout, poncy-mouth?"

[Yes, I talk back to the TV. No, I never expect an answer. I'm not THAT stupid. (Although...no, never mind)]

TV: "How did these ancient peoples manage to build islands in the middle of this loch?"

ME: "If you say 'ancient aliens', so help me I'll..."

And it goes on like that. Every day, every night. When the TV does start talking back to me, I'll be sure to let you guys know. Unless it orders me not to.

[Starfox]

I definitely missed those weird ramblings of yours in 2024.

Myself, I decided that it was far too soon in this new year to decide how good or bad it is although as you know my prospects for the future are kind of limited. It will be a year of change, at least I know that.

Well...not me, actually. It's addressed to my mother.

Interesting. I guess that the process to select people for a jury is about the same in the US and in France. People are picked randomly from voting lists, no? Please correct me if I'm wrong -- I guess it may also depends on each State laws. So it means someone possibly not high in the food chain, didn't do their work, or did it badly and your mom is still on the voting lists.

Rest assured though, the French administration is also able to deliver some major screw ups. About a year ago I had the surprise to discover that my father (deceased in 2003) was still the proud owner of a legally registered vehicle, despite the fact that this vehicle, after being inherited by my mother, was destroyed a few years ago as a standard end of vehicle life procedure. So here we have the case of a vehicle that doesn't exist anymore but with a perfectly valid registration like if it was still rolling around, and even more with my father driving it.

why the hell am I watching British documentaries???

Great question. Apparently your life, heart rate and blood pressure would go improved NOT watching them.

Also I learned first hand that people should be very careful about accepting what is said in those TV documentaries. 3 times out of 10 after close inspection they appear to be a big pile of dung coated in a thick layer of BS. Which is still better than documentaries on YT, there the proportion jump to 6 out of 10. One has to literally zig and zag between the worst to find the best.

Bad documentaries are like porn on the internet... more easily found than avoided...

Oh and I took the liberty to rectify your link in the previous post because it didn't work... it was very weirdly formatted.

[Starfox]

I'm going to post that in your thread because some humor never hurts and this guy below just made my day. At first I was like "OK, some guy is going to insult the French language" but in fact no, as a French I can say that the guy has a point. It's just that as French we don't realize it because we've been taught those numbers our whole life but I must say, yep we count pretty weirdly (but really who cares as long as it works).

[Doc_Brown]

Ironically, the things you can just repeat over and over again until you've got it down--stuff like numbers, the alphabet, even song lyrics--are what I remember best from taking French classes.

In the spirit of fair play, here's the metric system versus the imperial system:

[Starfox]

Wait... the bald eagle is an American unit? Actually, it would seem appropriate. And you can even divide it. Wing, head, beak...

But the whole imperial vs metric gets even weirder. In France we use metric of course (after all we invented the damn thing) with two significant exceptions. Go into any French plane cockpit and look at the altimeter... That's right, feet! Look at the speed... yep, knots (we say "pieds" and "noeuds" but the measures are the same. Go into a French submarine and oops... knots, feet and nautical miles (that would be "nautiques" in French). French ships, same! And that's valid for a lot of countries who did adopt the metric system.

So at the end of the day... go figure...