Tiny Purple Fishes ...¹

Odysseus and Polyphemus
Arnold Böcklin (PD)

Ah yes, the morning ritual ...

Wait, what? What about the Revolution?

Gimme a minute, okay? I have another tale to tell, we'll get back to the Revolution soon.

Now where was I?

Yes, the morning ritual. As a retiree I pretty much stay up as late as I want and get up as late as I want. No longer does my day begin with the alarm going off and me groaning about "Fudge," or something close to that. Nope, now I get up when I stop sleeping and no longer feel the need for more.

So on St. Patrick's Day I awakened at my usual time (actual time is classified but it's later than 0600) and after performing the standard OGR² I go to the smart phone. Why? Well, to check the blog, make sure the daily post actually posted, and then post a link to the post to Facebook, in two places. One on my home page, one at the page of Neptunus Lex. It's what I do.

Anyhoo, I check the blog, latest post is live, I grab its link and head to Facebook ...

You need to log in again ... (or words to that effect)

Now I'm having a kind of "open the pod bay doors HAL" moment ...

For the page I get when I log in looks like mine, but it ain't mine. Profile picture is me (an older profile pic mind you) and apparently my cousin had fallen on hard times and I was selling his stuff to raise money. Or something, it's kind of a classic scam.

I shake my head, I get dressed, I figured that this was something I could deal with AFTER I had my coffee. As I head downstairs, The Missus Herself asks, "What happened to your cousin?" (The Missus Herself and I are, duh, friends on Facebook.) Now I'm having another moment, a Talking Heads moment ...

And you may tell yourself 

"This is not my beautiful house!"

And you may tell yourself

"This is not my beautiful wife!" 

Coffee in hand, I return to the Facebook question. Sometimes my phone will do weird shit, like log me out of things, I figure maybe it's that, so I head for the desktop.

Same thing. So I contact the Facebook folks³, first person has me try a couple of things (you know the standard, "did you try turning it off, then turning it back on again?"), none of which works. So I get handed off to an actual tech person who works for Meta.

That person, after some digging, determines that sometime in the wee hours, between midnight and oh-dark-thirty, someone had indeed managed to hijack my Facebook page. Not clone, not create a similar page, but actually take over my page. The Meta person gave me a "standby while I fix this" and after a moment or three, came back with "try it now."

I did, and my account was back. I was me again. I changed my password as recommended (and no Matt, it wasn't "navy") and said thank you very much. I logged off of Facebook and decided to return in an hour or so to see if it still worked ...

Nope. The scammer was back. I say scammer because the individual claimed to be selling his cousin's stuff because of some sob story. Sure, if that was real, you'd have your own Facebook page. Asshole. (This BTW, is a rather classic scam. You offer shit for sale, people send you money, you take the money and run. No, the people who sent money get squat. There was never a cousin, there was never stuff for sale.)

Now I figured I'd have to go through all the pain of chat with Meta again, and I did, for a while, until I noticed an email from the first Meta person who had helped me ...

So is the problem resolved? Can you log in? Are you you?

And the answers there were: No, no, and (Facebook-wise) no.

The person actually cared and asked me to give them some time to resolve the issue. After the two of us had gone through a number of things, it seems the hacker was very clever and had done some things he shouldn't have been able to (hopefully Meta fixes that hole) and I was kinda screwed, sort of.

The Meta person said she'd be in touch (by the screen name I assumed the tech was a lady) and please be patient.

Oh, did I mention one of the troubleshooting things I did was accessing Facebook using my cellphone? I didn't? Well, that was another part of the adventure. (Kinda like running into Polyphemus⁴ on that island ...).

My phone had decided at some point while trying to recover my account that the Facebook app on said phone needed updating. Sigh, I consented.

Google Play said, "Yo dude, you're unsecured, you need to have a PIN or a fingerprint." So I said, "Sure, whatever, I'll do the fingerprint thing." And I did.

The Facebook App was happy and we continued down the troubleshooting path. Then, while waiting for the tech to send another message, I was using an app on my phone which decided to freeze up, become unresponsive, you know, the software shit the bed ...

What to do, what to do? First step, get more coffee and wait.

After fifteen minutes, the app is still frozen. So next step, one I've used many times, is to restart my phone. (On most software-driven systems if you restart the system it clears out whatever made the software hang and you can continue. Until the next time.)

Phone restarts and it says ...

Because you restarted, you need to enter your PIN.

Say what? What PIN? I've never had a PIN on this phone, what the hell?

Phone is now locked, I mean locked-locked. I try my standard PINs (yes, I have standard PINs, and no Matt, one of them is not "6289" which is "navy" from a phone's key pad) to no avail, phone stays locked and the intervals between "try again" keep getting longer.

So I head off to the cell phone store for my service. Nope, they can't reset it or unlock it or do anything other than sell me a new phone. Dude suggests the Geek Squad at Best Buy.

Sigh, back in the car, drive up to Massachusetts (closest reliable Best Buy, there's a story I might tell someday ...) and arrive at Best Buy.

"Hi Sir, can I help you?" sayeth the greeter at the door

"Why yes, yes you may, I'm here to see the Geek Squad."

 

"Do you have an appointment?"

 

After telling the guy no, I'm thinking "What are they, like doctors now?" The guy says, oh, they're available go right on in."

I explain the situation, am told all about factory reset, lose all your data, blah, blah, blah, I tell them "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"

After I explain myself, them not getting the Naval reference, I say ...

Well, on behalf of my phone I said that.

Fiddle, fiddle, some explanation, then "Hhmm, I can't do a factory reset on the phone, keeps asking for the PIN. Do you know your PIN?"

This time I'm the one with the blank stare, "Uh, that's why I'm here, I don't have a pin."

So it's back home, where I explain to the Meta tech that as my phone has decided not to cooperate, we'll have to wait for the morrow, when I can go forth and buy a new phone.

She said that that was cool, to email her when when I was ready.

So the day comes, a Wednesday and I head off to purchase said phone. I explain the situation to the guy, who much like me calls a spade a spade, says, "Yeah, you're f**ked, I doubt even the factory could actually reset this guy. You've locked out the universe this time."

Grimacing I chose a new phone (a very nice one for which the list price was north of $600) and prepared myself to mortgage my home ...

"That comes to $141." (and change)

 

"Huh, seems low."

The guy assures me that that indeed is the price, as it is well less than expected, I thank him and walk out of the store. As we get in the car I look to The Missus Herself and say, "Why so cheap?"

"Maybe they're having a special. Who cares? You have your phone, let's go eat."

So we did.

Thursday morning I get up and check my email. The tech lady is back and asks if I was able to log in to Facebook yet. I said no, and she made some suggestions which resulted in "no joy," She says, "give me a minute or two, I want to try something."

Well, she got back to me in minutes and after some arcane maneuvering on the web and some creation of stuff that was new, she did her magic and said, "Try it now."

I did and lo and behold I had my Facebook account back. I changed the password, again (and no Matt, it still wasn't "navy") then proceeded to dispatch damage control parties to clean up the mess the hacker had left.

Six new "friends" who were quickly unfriended, restoring profile pictures and the like, and "Whoa! What the hell?"

I had missing friends, cherished friends one of whom was my daughter LUSH, another was my bestest buddy Liz, and the aforementioned Matt. Damn, oh damn. Then I remembered, LUSH had accosted the scammer "You ain't my Dad, yer a right bastard you are." So he unfriended and blocked her.

Same for Liz, same for Matt.

Searching for this and that I eventually unblocked and re-friended the aforementioned folks and now, as of this date, things are back to normal.

Other than having to update all of my contacts on my phone and the loss of over 600 photos from said phone because you-know-who⁵ said "I don't trust this cloud shit" at some point five years or so ago. And yes, the photos from over five years (or so) ago all showed up on the new phone once I got it all configured. (This time I'm going to trust the Cloud, offsite storage is something I always practiced professionally, gonna do it personally now.)

So yes boys and girls, it's been one hell of a week. My own little odyssey, of sorts. And yes, Ulysses and Odysseus were one and the same. (It's that whole who told the story thing, Roman or Greek. I think the Greeks did everything first, then the Romans copied them. Or something.)

Anyhoo, I'm back baby!

Tales of Brave Ulysses

Words: Martin Sharp. Music: Eric Clapton Performed by: Cream

You thought the leaden winter

Would bring you down forever

But you rode upon a steamer

To the violence of the sun

And the colours of the sea

Blind your eyes with trembling mermaids

And you touch the distant beaches

With tales of brave Ulysses

How his naked ears were tortured

By the sirens sweetly singing

For the sparkling waves are calling you

To kiss their white laced lips

And you see a girl's brown body

Dancing through the turquoise

And her footprints make you follow

Where the sky loves the sea

And when your fingers find her

She drowns you in her body

Carving deep blue ripples

In the tissues of your mind

Tiny purple fishes

Run laughing through your fingers

And you want to take her with you

To the hard land of the winter

Her name is Aphrodite

And she rides a crimson shell

And you know you cannot leave her

For you touched the distant sands

With tales of brave Ulysses

How his naked ears were tortured

By the sirens sweetly singing

Tiny purple fishes

Run laughing through your fingers

And you want to take her with you

To the hard land of the winter

Source

Okay, the song is only tangentially relevant to the post, but hey, I love that song. Besides which, it gives me a change to use "Tiny Purple Fishes" as a post title.

Yeah, like I needed an excuse ...

Sarge Note: I wanted to relate my experience with the whole hijacked Facebook account thing and I felt some lighter fare was needed after Tuna's rather grim and heavy post yesterday. Before jumping back into my murder-death-kill tale of the American Revolution. And I am effing exhausted after the week's "festivities." I lost a lot of sleep due to my "righteous" anger of someone coopting my Facebook account. It's where I keep up with my far flung legion of friends and family. Since retiring it's become my community of folks. Scoff if you will, but damn it, losing that hurt far more than I thought possible. Anyhoo, for now, all is well, at least in my little corner of the universe.

¹ From Tales of Brave Ulysses by Cream. Video and lyrics above.

² Old Guy Rituals. If you know, you know. (IYKYK for the kids in the audience.)

³ Via a chat button I'd never noticed before!

⁴ Another reference to the Odyssey the whole recovering the Facebook account was an odyssey of sorts, just didn't take as long.

⁵ Yeah, that would be me, Your Humble Scribe.

The Well is Running Dry

Screenshot of the Commander's Position in the Panther
IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad

Contrast the German Panther commander's position above with that of the Soviet KV-1 commander's position below ...

Screenshot of the Commander's Position in the KV-1
IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad

Note the game play aids along the bottom of the screen along with the mini-map in the lower right hand corner.

I've had this game for a long time, couple of years at least. When I got it my machine didn't really have the cojones to run the game, it IS a resource hog, comparatively speaking. My Razer laptop could run it but that poor beast died before I could really get to this game. Okay, I have a LOT of games for the computer.

My current laptop has the cojones to run the game but, and this is a big but, the laptop heats up quickly when playing games of this sort and I don't really want to burn up another laptop. Laptops are deuced useful when traveling dontcha know? But the smell of hot electronics bothers me. A lot. Can't imagine why. (Bit of snark there, I used to work avionics and the smell of hot electronics meant there was something we had to fix ... Which is exactly why I don't like that smell.)

My current desktop machine has lots of power and lots of cooling fans, seven to be precise, and the CPU is liquid cooled, not quite like a Maxim machine gun but you get the idea.

I'm still getting to know this new machine (so far I love it) and I do that by playing games on it. It's who I am, it's what I do. Can't command armies in the field but I certainly can on my computer. Best of all, no one gets hurt for real.

A game I am anxiously awaiting is Grand Tactician: Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815). The following screenshot might tell you why ...

Grand Tactician: Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815)

I have the American Civil War version of this, Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865) and enjoy it though the graphics aren't quite as good as what is shown above. As can be seen below ...

Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865)

The units seemed to be scaled better in the former, by which I mean the number of men represented on the display matches what the actual unit would have. If a battalion has 500 men, you'll see 500 men. The latter game seems to have fewer soldiers on the display than would be present in real life. Then again, that might be a setting the user can fiddle with. More items to display takes longer and on lower end machines could really bog down the game play. We shall see.

So that's what I'm up to, as for material for blog posts the well does seem to be running dry. Maybe it's me being lazy (or tired, I stay up way too late playing these damned games) or perhaps I need a break.

Might take a couple of weeks away from the hurla burla of the internet, I'm starting to need it. Failbook is driving me nuts (too much political shit) so I'm cutting back on my time spent over there. I'll read friend and family posts about their families and vacations but not much more. It's getting out of hand. (And don't get me started on the number of bloody ads Failbook inundates us with.)

Anyhoo, enjoy your Sunday. See you ...

Uh, scratch that, be back on Tuesday with something, I dunno ...

Maybe inspiration will hit, you never know.

Snippy ...

Source

I have noticed lately that I can be a bit, shall we say, abrupt. With people and with events. It seems that as I age I no longer have the patience to deal with things as might be expected in polite society.

Then again, I've never been much for polite society. I prefer the blunt rollicking manners of the old school military, among equals, of course. Coarse, loud, and with no filter whatsoever.

At my retirement ceremony, some 26 years ago this month, my captain said of me, "If you want Sergeant Goodrich's opinion on something, just ask. But don't be surprised if he gives you both barrels." That was one wise officer. (He was also a damned good one, fellow northern New Englander he was.)

During my civilian career I tried to restrain myself, to no avail. While that worked for a number of years, it got me absolutely nowhere. I wasn't numbered among the "chosen" and never would be, so what did it matter if I was blunt or not?

At one review, my section manager said that one of my reviewers wrote that I "was not a team player." In response I said, "If that means that I don't go along with every stupid idea he has, then no, I am not. He doesn't have a f**king team, he has an entourage."

So yeah, no patience for the niceties when they consist of so much empty air.

While I don't intend to quit blogging, the thought has crossed my mind now and again. So don't be surprised if I get snippy in the comments from time to time. It's happened twice over the last couple of days. It's my natural fatigue at trying to be entertaining. It can be a chore at times.

If I get snippy with you, gentle reader, don't take it personally, perhaps I took your comment the wrong way, misinterpreted what you meant.

Or maybe I just didn't like your comment. It happens.

The really bad ones get deleted, some I let stand. Depends on my mood really.

Merriam-Webster defines curmudgeon as "a crusty¹, ill-tempered, and usually old man." Now "crusty," in the military, can refer to an individual, particularly a long serving individual, who is gruff, surly, and sometimes rude.

So am I a curmudgeon? It would seem so. But rather than plead guilty to that charge, I will simply say, "no contest."

If I hath offended thee ...

Oh well.

And, great picture, innit?

¹ Which Merriam-Webster defines as "giving an effect of surly incivility in address or disposition." I prefer the military variation, though the Merriam-Webster definition does fit.

On the Road Again ...

OAFS Photo

It's a travel day today as we head back to Little Rhody. Going to miss playing with the grandkids and hanging out with The Nuke and Tuttle. But there's ponds that need cleaning and grass that needs cutting and ...

I have a cleaning appointment at my dentist on Wednesday. I'm really glad that they make it a habit to call to remind folks as I had completely forgotten. So I've got that going for me.

Note the opening photo, Old Glory is something I still believe in. I am so sick of the name calling and the bitching and moaning which accompanies modern politics and what some people think passes for "discussion."

Believe what you will, I really don't care. Do your job, support and defend the Constitution and please, please, please, just STFU.

I don't care what you believe and I'm not going to belabor you with what I believe. You simply cannot conceive just how badly things have gone downhill in the past few decades. I really do blame the MSM, create a 24-hour news cycle, then you better fill it.

I've always believed that 75% of the world's population isn't all that bright, easily led dontcha know, and that applies to every single organization, clan, country, tribe, and what-have-you on every speck of inhabitable land on this here rock floating in space.

Not bad people, just too many who either can't think for themselves or don't know how. You know, the stupid.

Maybe I'm a pessimist but hey, "Lighten up, Francis." And, most importantly ...

"Get off my lawn."

There are days I almost decide to chuck this whole internet thing and return to blissful ignorance.

Retirement allows me the time to enjoy myself, don't bother me Chicken Little, the sky ain't falling and if it is, it's probably because you're trying to sell me something.

Park's closed, moose out front should have told you.

OAFS Photo

Maryland is a beautiful place. I'm going to miss it for a while, but ...

OAFS Photo

We'll be back.

Soon.

Loose lips sink ships and watched pots never boil.

Damn, just lighten up people, enjoy life and stop trying to be a pain in everyone else's ass. Both sides!

Be seeing you.

/rant

Carry on.

Spring Ahead ...

German infantry assaulting a French position called Le Mort Homme
during the Battle of Verdun, March 1916.
By Hermann Rex
Source

Back when I was gainfully employed, I hated Daylight Saving Time. I would feel as if my body clock was undergoing an attack nearly as violent as that depicted above. Sure, I'm probably exaggerating, but ...

Even the reason we were given as kids "well, it's for the farmers" was absolute bovine excrement. Farmers work when they have to, doesn't matter if the sun is up or down. I knew dairy farmers back in the day, most were up well before sunrise. At least the successful ones were.

Where did it really start? Well, the picture above provides a clue. Yup, Germany and Austria in World War I. Though apparently some areas in Canada were using it prior to 1916. Save on electricity in the factories dontcha know?

Anyhoo ...

This return to Daylight Saving Time is much despised by me. I've heard some say that we should do it the year round. Well, guess what, you want school kids catching the bus an hour before sunrise? It's been tried and it doesn't work.

If you like it, well more power to you. I'll just sit in the cheap seats and bitch about it.

On the bright side, other than Sundays, I don't care what time it is. Hey ...

I'm retired.

As always, your mileage may vary.

Sorry for the short post, I'm a bit out of sorts at the moment. I expect things to improve shortly, until then ...

Ciao.

WFH

Source

Lately, there has been some fuss about people working from home (as opposed to "working from home," which I'll get to in a moment). Especially within the ranks of Federal employees.

A report came out, not too long ago, about the large quantity of office space in Federal buildings which is either not occupied at all, or under-occupied. People (think taxpayers) want to know where are all those people. Who's minding the store?

Well, in many cases, they're working from home. That is, they are not spending one to two hours a day commuting to DC, putting in an eight to twelve hour day (don't laugh, some do), then commuting back to their homes, again one to two hours. I might be a bit conservative on those numbers. Ask anyone who has driven in the DC area in rush hour. Or, more accurately, has sat in their cars praying that traffic will start moving, maybe even get close to the speed limit.

Been there, done that, no fun.

So the new administration wants Federal employees back in their offices. Some people cheer this, some do not, particularly those who have to go back to that daily commute.

Of course, another aspect to all this is trimming the size of the Federal government, which most will admit suffers from a certain amount of bloat. (We can disagree on the amount of bloat, but a fit and trim institution it is not.)

Once upon a time Your Humble Scribe was told, not asked mind you, to work from home. It was during the late "pandemic" of 2020. Fortunately I was what you'd call "between assignments." Which means I was getting paid to do nothing, other than hold myself in readiness should an assignment present itself (which it did eventually).

So every morning I'd get up at a reasonable time (usually eight-ish), fire up the computers (work and personal), check for any new emails (such as one saying "come to the office, you have an assignment"), and then head downstairs to brew up some coffee.

With coffee in hand, I would head aloft and sit down in front of my two computers, one work, one personal, and go through the "morning mail" as Buck was wont to call it.

Eventually I would take the opportunity to shower and shave and put on actual clothing (as opposed to sweats) so that should the call come, I'd be ready. If nothing new was in the offing, I'd head back downstairs and have some food.

Each day would pass with me sitting at the computers, monitoring the work emails, and futzing around on my personal computer. This lasted for a few months until the call came down -

"Sarge, we've got an assignment for you."

"Ah okay, that's awesome. When do I start?"

"Is Monday too soon?"

At this point I'm thinking that as I've been doing nothing for a few months, what could possibly prevent me from starting the new assignment immediately?

I mean do I answer with, "Oooh, that'll be tight, I'm not finished doing nothing yet. Monday is a little soon."

Nope, my answer was, "See you Monday!"

"Uh, you will have to come back to the office."

"I view that as a feature, not a bug. I'll be back in the lab on Monday."

And I went back, with a song in my heart and the wind in what's left of my hair. For you see, I hated working from home. It was stressful, it felt like work had invaded my beloved computer room. I believe fully in the separation of work and home.

That being said, I'm not against folks working from home, if they can still be productive.

I knew a number of folks at the old gig who "worked from home" (there's those quotes again). From what I observed, these folks spent the entire day phoning into (or perhaps Zooming into is more accurate) meetings. All day.

Were they a lead on the project these meetings were for? Sometimes, often they were not, somehow they had found the magic job where you could pretend to be important all day long without actually contributing a damned thing.

OTOH, there were people who were in those meetings for whom working from home (notice, no quotes) worked out well. They were able to contribute in a meaningful way and not have to be physically in the building. They would come in as needed and things worked well, for the company and for them. A hybrid situation if you will (some days at home, some days in the office).

There is a perception, among far too many people, that people who work from home are never productive and are just scamming their employer. All of them. Well, it ain't the case, some are productive, many probably in fact. But you know the old saying, "one bad apple spoils the bunch."

So the fact that some are playing the system leads to the perception that all are playing the system. When in fact it really means most managers do not have a handle on what their people are doing. In twenty-five years at my civilian gig I knew of three, maybe four, managers who would actually get off their asses and go to where their people were working to see what they were doing. The rest were of the "Send me your status report at the end of the week" type. Data would be entered in a spreadsheet and the "status" would be reported up the line as gospel.

Sigh.

Most of my work was classified, so I had to be in the lab. That applies to 99.99999% of all the people working on classified systems. (That 0.00001% consists of the one manager who just tracks status and budget, they don't need to actually see the system, just track that the numbers all line up. They exist and they are important.)

Am I exultant that the new administration is forcing people to go back to their offices?

No, I am not. A case by case assessment by competent management could be done to determine who should be in the office and who can work from home.

But this is the Federal government, competent managers are not that prevalent. Just look at how things have been for the past few decades. Does that look like someone with a brain is actually running things?

I think not.

Yes, the wheat needs to be separated from the chaff. Is this the way to do that (blanket ordering everybody back to work)? Maybe not.

But if it works, those who benefit from the ability to work from home will be able to return to that, the scammers will move on (hopefully), and things will be right as rain.

And if you believe that ...

I have this bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in.

In a Semi-Dark Kind of Mood ...

PxHere

I'll open with this - I am an optimist but I'm also a realist.

The election is today, it's a big one. I have been hearing the odd political ad here and there, normally while watching football. Not that I watch a lot of football but enough that I've been exposed to an ad or three in the past few weeks.

The amount of absurdity, nonsense, and outright lies I've heard are astounding. Most of the candidates out there are guilty of it. I get it, they're trying to get re-elected by selling themselves to voters who are pretty naive. I mean most Americans are content to live their lives and hope nobody annoying bothers them.

Well, every couple of years their elected representatives (not leaders, damn it) go out of their way to annoy them. The old "if I'm elected, I will ..." promises flow freely, most of the candidates know that the voters will go back to their regular routines and not really care if all of those promises are kept.

Leastways that's my take on it.

One side or the other will "win," that's in quotes because the American people should be the winners, not some group of politicians. We, the People, didn't "win" in the last election, if you think we did, you either don't buy gasoline, or groceries, or anything else for that matter. Prices have skyrocketed over the past four years.

Why?

If we don't produce energy, we have to buy it from somewhere. If the price of gasoline goes up, so does everything else. Planes, trains, and automobiles (trucks actually) move everything you want to buy or sell.

Fields are plowed and harvested with machines that use gasoline.

Gasoline, not hopes, wishes, solar, or wind - gasoline. It's that simple.

Vote today. It's important.

And pray...

hard.

Summer's Gone?

OAFS Photo

I have that picture above as my Book of Faces "cover photo." During some painful days at work I will go to the Book of Faces and just stare at that photo for a few seconds, maybe even a full minute. Brings me peace it does.

You may have noticed that there is no fiction post today, the Muse needed some time to herself, can't say I blame her. The grammarians were out in full force yesterday and it browned me off a bit. You try creative writing every single day and try not to make an error or three. Here's a reminder, I speak English, very well I might add, I cannot type as fast as my brain creates, so typos and grammatical errors occur. Point them out if you must, but add an element of snark, and you're gone. Well, your comment is anyway.

Another shocker, I'm an amateur historian, actually minored in the topic at school, so if you feel the need to add some historical tidbit in your comments, you're not educating me, you're annoying me. Just stop, start your own blog. I mean seriously, in some cases I know far more about the topic than you ever will, so while you might think it's a great comment, I don't. Take a deep breath, comment on the content (I repeat content) of the post or just drive on. 'Nuff said.

And just why is the reference work called "Who's Who." Grammarians, have at it. (No, not really, hold it in.)

Now it's easy to assume that it's just the significant other trying to mold you, sometimes what she's (or he as the case may be) trying to tell you is valid. When your kids agree, well then, maybe your sh!t does actually stink.

I've been extremely crabby this year, snapping at people for what seems like a good reason for me, but isn't really. I'm on the road to my happy place, but I ain't there yet. The Missus Herself has broached that topic more than once, honestly, I just ignored it. But when The Nuke and LUSH both pointed out that sometimes I'm more of an asshole than I need to be, well, I took notice.

Doesn't mean I've abandoned the cult of curmudgeon, simply dialing it back a bit.

Source

The title? Well, it's September, innit? Kids are back in school, the vacation days of summer are gone and people will be closing up their swimming pools soon. I know, I know, it's still summer until later this month, but does it really feel like it?

I thought not.

Anyhoo, going to dinner tonight¹ at an Italian place in Cranston, has good reviews, including a recommendation from a colleague, so there's another reason to not write tonight. Dinner with friends is always something to savor.

So, if I have offended, 申し訳ありません.²

No, really.

I'll leave you with this ...³

Source

Postprandial Update:

Dinner was incroyable or perhaps I should say incredibile, I mean it's an Italian place, innit?

If you're ever in Cranston, RI, stop by Marchetti's, it's excellent. Tasty food, gigantic portions, we're going to be eating Italian all week I think.




¹ Saturday as I write, Sunday as you read ...

² Very sorry (Japanese)

³ Hat tip to wirecutter. Yes, I know, it's not the same, but I credit him with the phrase.