Just a hash of thoughts from an untidy, yet entertaining, brain.

  • EOS: A new hashtag

    I want to establish a new hashtag, a new way of marking my posts that means something that I’ve always tried to imply, but never said explicitly.

    Everyone knows the phrase “Full of Shit”, it’s usually accompanied by you are, or you’re, I am, we are, they are, or even it’s or that’s. We know what it means; you’re making thing up, you are exaggerating for effect or just outright lying. It’s not always to cause any harm, but it’s rarely a good thing.

    There is the whole Santa thing, of course. Parents are completely FoS when they tell their kids that some dude that has a 24-hour surveillance system that covers every person, in real time, on the planet (what is that now, 8 billion?) with a staff of elves, and a wife, of course. And this same fellow covers the entire globe in 24-hours. Not just one circuit, but every house, hut, and lean-to in every city, town or village in every country, territory and province in the world. All in just 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds. (Maybe a few extra billionths of a second, even) Plus, this same dude lives off cookies and milk as his source of sustenance during this trip (this does check out vis-a-vis his purported jolly gut, but verisimilitude does not equal truth) In addition, this same fellow, dressed in red and white, belted with a broad belt and gold buckle, can get into any house, castle or fort with the skill of a bad smell, all without creasing his outfit. And that he uses the greatest cat-burglar skill in history to not profit, but to give away presents! He’s not a creeper in the stranger-danger sense, despite have all the hallmarks of such, but he drops by to eat cookies and fill stockings.

    That is the greatest FoS story in history, and it’s never meant to hurt anyone, but invariably hurts every kid when they learn the truth. First, the loss of innocence in the myth, but just as significantly, they learn that their parents are Big Fat Liars. And that big loss of trust coming from a 7-year-old can be felt through generations. A grandmother that feels that sense of betrayal is hurt when their favorite grandkid won’t let her call them their little elves, hobgoblins or fairy princesses.

    But, this is not a screed on Christmas lies or that size never matters, it’s the opposite. I want to use EoS as a tag. So that when you see it, you’ll know I’m telling the truth, as I know it. That I’m being honest, sincere and straight with you. I might be wrong, that happens sometimes, but it’ll be an honest mistake, no attempt is made to trick you, in any way.

    So, look for the tag, and you’ll know what it means.

  • I think I’m going to break up with KFC

    It’s about that time.

    I know, all chicken prices went up due to the avian flu issue that happened a couple of years ago. Reportedly they had to kill hundreds of flocks, not just individual chickens. Whole flocks were destroyed. So, prices of eggs (for transparency, chickens are where the eggs come from) went way up. I remember once joking with a cashier that I was so excited I got approved for a loan, I could get an 18-count of eggs! She laughed. And chicken prices, naturally, soared as well (as opposed to chickens themselves, they can’t fly, even a little, much less soar.)

    Even the dependable $5 Friday at Safeway that featured eight pieces of dark meat chicken went away. All I’d see were small hams for that price in the ads. Fred Meyer got sneaky. They’d put four pieces in a container about the same size as the old eight-piece. You’d see $5 on it, and snatch it up before looking close. It was only four pieces, though it did include a breast, so that’s something.

    But lately, the $5 chicken deal shows up at Safeway again. Not as often, maybe once a month, or less, but it does happen. Chicken by the pound is lowering, if not to pre-avian flu levels, at least in the neighborhood.

    So, imagine my surprise when I went into KFC the other day and got a three-piece “special” which included two sides, mashed potatoes and coleslaw, plus a biscuit. All for the “special” price of $14.99! Fifteen dollars for a three-piece meal! I still can’t grok it. Though my memory is not clear enough to name a date and time, I know I used to buy those at $7.99, and it wasn’t in 1970. I was here in Oregon the last time, so at least within the last 13 years. That’s nearly a 200% inflation rate in about a decade. Can you think of anything that has inflated that much, so fast? And don’t say Trump’s ego, that’s too easy.

    Luckily for what sanity I have left, I spent no cash on it. I had a gift card (from playing some game or other), it was for $100, and I had reserved that for frivolous purposes. I had thought to get a Lego kit, or something, but I settled for some overpriced chicken.

    Don’t get me wrong. It tasted great. The chicken was hot, moist, and spicy in only the way The Colonel can make it. The coleslaw was fine, as were the mashed potatoes and gravy, reliably tasty. The biscuit was great, even without the honey sauce. (I still don’t get “honey sauce”; it’s either honey or something else. Why keep calling it something it’s not? It’s corn syrup that was waved over a bee farm, nothing more.) But all that for $15? For that much they needed to dry clean my clothes, shine my shoes, and maybe wipe my lips after I ate.

    As I was eating my “special” I fumed, I groaned, I stewed like tomatoes for Grammie’s stew. (No, I never called her Grammie. Not sure why I said that, or why I’m admitting it, but there it is.) Then, I made a plan.

    You see, I’d been trying to crack the recipe for Popeye’s chicken for some time. Frankly, it hasn’t gone well. While the chicken tastes great, the breading is just not right. Too cakey, and slabs just fall off with the crunch. But I keep trying new things, every now and then, inching closer to the promised land.

    I hadn’t done that in a minute. I’d been out of work for quite a while, and money for food experiments was just not available. Yet cooking is always in the back of my mind. I have the tools, and I’ve gotten good at researching counterfeit recipes. So trying KFC shouldn’t be too hard, right?

    I remember a show on Food Network, ages ago. The name wasn’t counterfeit Chef, but it was something like that. Anyway, the host drove around to different places, did a little historical research into his target, then tried to recreate the recipe. Then he’d assemble a panel of experts, folks from the authentic place, super fans, and such.

    The one I distinctly remember was the Chicken Lettuce Wrap from P.F. Chang’s. (okay, I did research, the name of the show was Top Secret Recipe, only ran eight episodes, but I watched them all. He did only win one of the eight, but it was a win. Todd Wilbur was the host’s name.) One of his targets was KFC, but I didn’t find his recipe, as I only just now figured out his name. Besides, he didn’t win KFC, the judges said his flavor “lacked depth.”

    I think that I remember the Lettuce Wrap most clearly, because it’s so ironic. I’ve never eaten at P.F. Chang’s nor had one of their wraps, so it was all new to me.

    What I did find was an amalgamation of different sources, but drawing heavily from Serious Eats, and the work of Kenji López-Alt and their analysis of KFC-style chicken. I did have to adapt a lot, as I don’t have a pressure fryer. That is the biggest lack I have. But, I do have a deep fryer, and that’s a step up from pan frying. (But, with pan frying there are ways to adapt that, as well. Oven finishing, for one.) With a deep fryer, you just have to pay close attention to the temperature, to cooking time, the breading… well, a lot, you’ll see.

    The first step was going to the store, Fred Meyer, for my ingredients. First a whole chicken, cut for frying. Now, I know how, but I lack counter space. And it takes a lot of counter space to break down a chicken, however, most grocery stores with butchers will work with you. I found a young chicken in the cooler, not frozen. (This is key. No butcher, no matter how kind, will break down a frozen chicken, don’t even try) I went to the counter, and asked, as kindly, if as matter-of-factly as I could, “Hi, I was wondering if you had a butcher here that could break this chicken down for frying?” And the counter man said he’d ask his manager, and went to ask her. My first thought was it was just for permission, based on his wording, but after she addressed me, I reassessed. “Do you have some shopping to do, still? Maybe ten minutes worth? And you do mean eight pieces, right? ” And I said yes, and yes, and off I went. I think she’s to butcher it.

    By the way, I remember, though it’s been a decade since, at least, but they used to have space in the cooler for fryer-cut chicken. I remember getting some a time or two. But cooler space has become very competitive, and it’s a bit of labor for breaking down a chicken, and so that thing has been lost to the packing plants that break down chicken for parts. You’ll still find all wings, all thighs, boneless and bone-in, legs, and breasts, though those are always bone free. But I have tried to make a whole fried chicken from parts, but due to breasts always being bone free, it’s not an equal trade off. (If I have boneless breasts, I’ll just cut those smaller and make chicken strips, right?)

    So, now, you just have to ask. Most stores will be happy to help. You do need to go during the day, when a butcher is there. A mere butcher tech will not have clearance to do it. Liability policies being what they are. So, go during the day, and ask if they could frier cut a chicken for you. I’ve even called and said I’d be there later, and they picked a chicken for me, and it was waiting for me. I think that’s a special case, so you have to 1 ask very nicely, and 2 actually show up when you say, so they are validated for trusting you. And if you flake off, you hurt his/her trust in you, and all, of us, as well, so, just show up, okay?

    I did finish shopping, I needed a few spices, and such. When I came back to the counter, I’m not sure it’d been a full ten minutes, but she saw me, and handed me a package. I laughed a bit when I said, “it still surprises me when a butcher asks if I’d like eight pieces. I mean, 2 legs, 2 breasts, 2 thighs, and 2 wings, what else is there?” She said some folks just want it cut smaller, is all. Okay, great, now I know.

    I got home, and I laid out what I purchased for you to see:

    This is what I bought.

    And this I already had on hand:

    Already had these.

    But, once I got that far, I realized I’d forgotten a very important ingredient, the buttermilk. You can’t marinate without it. But frankly, I’d expended my social currency for the day, I needed to wait till it renewed.

    The next morning, I went to the store. (This time I went to the more near one, Safeway, as I didn’t expect buttermilk to be too exotic, it’s a much smaller store than Fred Meyer.) picked that up, and headed home.

    Then I prepared the marinade.

    • 2 cups buttermilk

    • 1 large egg

    • 1 tsp salt

    • 1 tsp black pepper

    • Optional: 1 tsp hot sauce (not for heat, for tang)

    Marinate at least 2 hours, up to overnight

    Buttermilk, egg, spices whisk completely

    Then found the right vessel, and found a surprise.

    Just the right size, the pieces are not packed, and lots of room for the marinade.
    The surprise, she included the backbone and neck. So it was more than eight pieces. Now an experiment comes into my brain.

    It was too big for the vessel I picked, so I put those new pieces in a vacuum sealable bag with a few tablespoons of marinade. Based on what I read, that might be better than the tub. No air pockets, and the liquid in every surface.

    Vacuum sealed

    I planned to let it set overnight, which is okay, and I didn’t add any hot sauce. Buttermilk acids gently work to break down the meat a bit, by denaturing surface proteins, yet the milk proteins provide a layer of protection to keep the meat moist, magical science. But, further reading confirmed longer than 24-hours can have negative effect, so just like sex, more is not always better.

    The next morning, I set up, and started my journey,

    I set up my deep fryer, and got that ready, then started mixing the dry dredge:

    For ~2 lbs chicken:

    • 2 cups all-purpose flour

    • 1 tbsp paprika

    • 2 tsp white pepper ← non-negotiable

    • 2 tsp black pepper

    • 1½ tsp kosher salt

    • 1 tsp garlic powder

    • 1 tsp onion powder

    • ½ tsp ground ginger

    • ½ tsp dried thyme

    • ½ tsp baking powder

    • ½ tsp MSG (optional, but authentic)

    This balance matters:

    paprika + white pepper + thyme = “KFC family resemblance”

    ginger keeps it from tasting like generic fried chicken

    I’ll be honest, using ginger bothered me. I like spicy food, and ginger is one spice that dampens spicy heat, yet, ironically, used alone, it is spicy itself. So, I was baffled by what it was doing here. But every source was adamant about white pepper and ginger. So, in it goes.

    Oh, and I used sea salt, not kosher salt, and I don’t think that matters much, a few minerals shouldn’t change things. Then I pulled out the chicken:

    See those bubbles in the buttermilk, that means it did its job!

    Now, here I went off the rails. I took the leftover cup of buttermilk, and added it to the stuff from the marinade to make an egg wash variant.

    Oops, into experiment

    You know, dry, wet, dry. That’s how I’ve always done it. But, turns out, that’s not the KFC way. It’s out of the marinade, packed flour, rest, fry.

    Yes, packed flour. You take out the chicken, let it drip till it stops, put it in the flour, and press it into every crevice and surface. Pack it tight. Then shake it free of loose flour, and set it aside. It needs about ten minutes to adhere, swap some wet into flour armor, and stuff. I decided to rest it in the fridge, though that’s not explicit anywhere. I get that from my recent spate of making buffalo wings. That’s another coat only once application, and those recipes point out that chilling them keeps the flour tightly adhering. So, I didn’t think that would hurt, here.

    Ready to rest

    And the backbone

    Big beast

    After the ten minutes, I was ready to go, except I wasn’t, I’d forgotten the TFal fryer has 2 switches, the dial, and the on/off switch. I’d forgotten that, so, I had to wait a couple more minutes for it to heat up.

    As you can see, TFal leans heavily into metrics. So achieving 320-45 was tricky
    See the heat waves in the oil?

    I’d do it in batches so to prevent crowding, that advice is all over the web, so don’t ignore it. Too close it steams more than fries and I don’t want steamed chicken, nor will you.

    First batch

    I used a meat thermometer to check the oil temperature, then deliberately lowered the chicken into the oil.

    One thing I’ve learned the hard way: resting dredged chicken in the fridge helps the coating set, but it’s not magic. Where pieces touch, moisture can leak through and thin the flour. I didn’t re-dredge — I just tapped a little flour where it needed it and moved on.

    As Anne Burrell liked to say, “Thunderous applause”

    When you have a fryer basket, the temptation is to just drop it straight in — McDonald’s style. But for chicken, that’s a mistake. You want to lower it deliberately, let the crust meet the oil gently, and give it a moment to set before committing fully.

    Fast food moves fast because it’s optimized. Home cooking isn’t.

    Also, I have real patience issues with frying — especially fries. I always want to rush the process, crank the heat, or flip too soon. Fried chicken doesn’t reward that behavior.

    This is not a “set it and walk away” food. Cooking chicken isn’t fire-and-forget. You check early to make sure nothing’s stuck to the basket. You check again to see if it needs flipping. You check temperatures. Every check means lifting the basket, making a decision, and putting it back.

    Anyone who says “just fry it for 15 minutes” is lying or working in a commercial kitchen. Or they have one of those pressure fryers, a Broaster. Here’s a story for you, out on Glisan, in east Portland, there’s this bar, they bought, or took over, a place that had folded. That former place had a Broaster License, and that doesn’t transfer, so these folks were outlaws. Outlaws with great chicken, let me tell you.

    A Broaster, or Henny Penny (the one most closely associated with KFC) can cook faster at a lower temp, which seals in moisture under pressure, and produces that impossible combo of shatter-crisp crust and ultra juicy interior.

    The TFal has a hood, for noise reduction and splitter prevention, I think. Here it is installed:

    Yeah, a little quieter, but…

    I only put it on for seconds, and when I removed it, a plume of steam came out. And that steam will ruin the crusting, so I left it off, thereafter. Remember, I have to do MANY things differently to make up for lacking the pressure fryer. Higher oil temp, longer cook, and many check ins along the way.

    First, I checked in about two minutes, to check release. I pulled it up, tilted it slightly, and the pieces moved, that was proof enough, back in the oil. Then at about 5 minutes, I lifted them to turn them over. For even browning.

    I took a “don’t touch the chicken” break just to thoroughly wash my hands. Pancake-style breading in one pass turns your fingers into part of the process whether you like it or not.

    Sometimes the pause is as important as the step.

    The fryer’s maximum fill line is deceptive. It works great for fries, but thicker chicken pieces can poke above the oil. When that happens, I don’t panic, I just spoon hot oil over the exposed spots until everything evens out. And flip mid cook. (If I can, see below)

    Adapt, don’t fight the equipment.

    Looking ready, pull to check temp
    For wings, thighs and legs, about 165 is what you want.
    Take them out and let rest on a rack.

    I did the next batch similarly, as it was the last wing and two thighs. I lowered the oil temp a bit, as the oil was now fully heated, not in spots, but everywhere, and had some particles, and that can affect it, so lower it by about 5 degrees for subsequent batches.

    Yowsa, time to pull them!

    Then came the breasts, and lower the heat another tic. They need to cook a little longer, to compensate for their thickness. And slower penetrates better, so lower with slightly longer cooks times. For temp on breasts, 160-165 I’d what to look for, 155, another minute, 170. Pull them immediately. Right at 160, you can give it another minute. But no more.

    When did chicken breasts get so big?
    These poked above the oil a lot, spooned it for a minute

    Flipping those was harder than the smaller pieces, you need better leverage, and maybe a tilt of the basket to roll it a little, if you want to keep the crust intact.

    Yowsa, pull those now!

    I did have to switch thermometers, the first one was running out of power. But I have a spare. Remember, adapt.

    Oops

    Yeah, I didn’t do as well as I’d hoped, broke the crust a bit, but there is no success without failure, and no learning if everything works the first time.

    While those were resting, I took out the spine and neck

    Big and little boys

    Now, here’s the experiment, as I had these pieces, they were unexpected, so extra, and worthy of a thought or two out of the ordinary, if it fails, no thing wasted, right!

    So, these I did second liquid wash, then second dry dredge. Then put them in the fryer.

    I should have put it in the other way, a pocket of hot oil, ish

    I learned a lot, here. The second coating made it too thick, and the coating oozed through the basket, and stuck it very tightly, so I had to do some cooking gymnastics. I lifted the basket up, scraped my tongs to break those batter rivets away, till I could finally flip it.

    Looks beefy, doesn’t it?

    The neck was also very stuck to the basket, but as it was below the oil line, it didn’t become apparent till I tried to remove it. A bit more culinary surgery, and it was free.

    Be prepared

    Don’t get it twisted: making fried chicken at home is not neat or tidy. Flour gets everywhere. Bowls multiply. Your hands end up just as coated as the chicken.

    Mise en place doesn’t always work for home cooks. Sometimes you just manage the chaos and keep moving

    That experiment added cleaning time lol
    Setting it to drain and filter is very cool

    Set the TFal to drain, and the magic of simple science takes over. Once the oil temperature drops to a safe level, gravity takes over. No computer chips, just a valve, a filter, and the storage bin.

    Cleanup was… significant. The experimental batch guaranteed that. The basket took some effort. Worth it anyway.

    Fried chicken isn’t a weeknight shortcut. It’s a project

    Now, to taste it. I sampled a thigh while still cooking, and it was good. But I was unable to truly evaluate it while in the midst of the cook.

    Leg, wing and breast

    Okay, the leg looked a trifle dark, but it did not taste burnt, and the inside was very moist. The wing was similar. The breast, oh my goodness, it was good. The breading was crispy without being brittle, it didn’t come off in a sheet. Frankly, I think I’ll cook any other piece, from here on out, at lower temps, it’s just that simple. And oh, my, was that meat moist. So moist I kept thinking I’d need a sponge or something. It was very, very satisfying.

    Did it taste like KFC. No. It didn’t. Not quite the snap of taste. The mouthfeel was right, the breading felt right, but it was missing the pepper or something, maybe if I had used that hot sauce, or used a bit more white pepper. I’m not really sure how to describe the difference, it just wasn’t there.

    But, it was sufficient to say I can break up with KFC. There is more sweat equity involved, but the cost savings are real. Three pieces, with sides and biscuit for 15 bucks and no leftovers, versus what I got. The spices break down against many uses to about 25 cents for this, and then the chicken, whole, all for about 8 bucks total, with leftovers!

    It’s not an easy decision, but as long as they are profit mongers, I’m cooking at home.

    Your results might vary, but I’m confident it’ll be similar.

    Addendum:

    I forgot to mention the sides. Or more properly, I didn’t prepare them at all.

    I could claim that I purchased them purely for verisimilitude vis-à-vis the contents of a three-piece meal. The truth, however, is more practical. My kitchen is on the small side, and I use a cover plate over the stovetop specifically for chicken prep. I couldn’t fire up the oven for the biscuits—the heat would bleed through and gently cook anything above it (not a great stove, tbh). Nor were any burners free for the potatoes. And the coleslaw, while not requiring any cooking at all, simply lay in the refrigerator, forgotten and feeling unneeded, perhaps.

    The point is: I purchased the sides for the math.

    By the time I’d finished four batches of chicken, actually consuming them—while arguably part of the full 1:1 experience—felt superfluous. I was tired, frankly, and whatever energy I had left I reserved for the taste test. That did reinvigorate me somewhat, but by the time I reached my conclusion, I was full.

    So the sides remain, all still at the ready for another day. (More leftovers, of course.)

    Rick

  • I’m back, again.

    My Site was in Limbo for a Bit, Did You Notice? (Redux)

    Sorry, not sorry…. wait, I AM sorry. My hosting company sucks.

    Originally Posted on November 2, 2021 by Jindai

    My site was down for a few months. It had been hosted by that friend I’ve talked about for ages. I think we both forgot about that. But he had a business change, and changed all his websites to the newest versions, and in doing so, my site was blown away.

    I did reach out to him, tentatively, through the hosting site, and he responded, in time, with the backup files all zipped up. Well, turns out not all the files. While I was trying to restore things, using the help pages, I was noticing I was missing files. WRX things, with the extension of IDX. Okay, I am not a coding expert, but I know idx files are index files, and part of a database.

    Months passed. Something about me. I grew up pretty privileged by my natural intelligence. I could solve puzzles easily, logic puzzles especially, and math was a whiz, language no problem. I developed very poor study habits thereby. (Failed to develop good ones?) and so failing at something, even if I’m not practiced in it, just galls me.

    I have turned that into an advantage in a few ways. For example, writing. I grew very good at mulling over writing that wasn’t working for a long time, and then whipping through like 10K words in an afternoon because I had run through so much in my head while I mulled. (I have done that 3 times in NaNoWriMo events.(A couple other times I didn’t get stuck and just plugged through every day.)

    But, in this case, it was just a massive fail. I just ignored the site. I mean, I thought about it, on occasion. “Oh, man, I need to do something.” “Hm, I have an idea I want to write down, rats, site is still down.” stuff like that.

    That is, until this last week. End of October means NaNoWriMo is starting soon. (has started as of this writing) I tried again, and failed again. I opted to pay the hosting site a pretty big chunk of cash to do it for me. That was Friday afternoon. Nothing happened. I logged into chat, pointed out this was not what I expected, and was told phone support had better options. So, I called, and was pretty much blown off. Turns out their Website Migration team (WSM) is Mon-Fri 9-5 only, and it was now after that. One guy did try and few things, and pointed out that it was missing any database files.

    So, I was right, I guess. The IDX thing. It wasn’t hidden anywhere in the zip, it was just gone. So, reluctantly, I emailed my friend again. No response while I was on the phone. Nor any response all weekend. I sent another couple emails, including one from tech support about the missing database files,

    Today, he responded, and sent an SQL file for the sub-site and asked if that was the right one. (It’s still offline; I bought an entirely new domain just for it, and haven’t configured it, yet) I said No, the main site, if you have it. A few hours later, he replied that he thought it was gone… then a quick follow-up saying “I found it!” Don’t get me wrong, this was wholly unexpected. I mean, months passed, it is entirely expected he would delete all files from dead sites (or sites he’s not hosting) And because of our disconnect, him even bothering to look, and look hard, it seems, is not something I expected. So, I’m very thankful he did that.

    Of course, it didn’t work, at first. He sent an SQL file, and the site importer I had been learning wanted the IDX/WRX thing. I tried anyway, and it failed. *shrug* So, I fired up hosting chat tech support again, and asked if they could help.

    Now, after so many phone messages, bad email from the now-working website migration team, . (please provide the website address you are migrating from: It’s not live, it’s in the zip file!), one actual phone disconnect while I was on hold, and a few other things that added to my frustration, finally, it seemed I had what I needed.

    The final guy I talked with agreed that the WSM package was not what I needed. So, he graciously refunded what I paid. So I was not expecting a lot of help, now. I hadn’t paid extra. But I reached a guy in tech support chat, and told him I have an SQL file, not an IDX, and all the help pages ask for the former. He knew what to do, I uploaded my SQL file to my file manager. He asked where it was, I told him, then asked if the jindai.zip were the other files needed. I had uploaded that last night for the other failed attempts, and it was still there. I said yes, and he put me on hold.

    A few minutes later, and my site was live again. I am so happy.

    There are a few quibbles. For over an hour I could not log in to the site to add a post, (Or fix a typo I just noticed in that last post) Plus there was an unknown admin login credential there I wanted to remove. Turns out the https WordPress login was just not working, I could log in the standard http way. That’s what I’m using now. Tech Support is looking into the secure login problems. But, I’ll post this, via this method, and then see if it shows up correctly, and in the https version. (I mean, it should, but still, calling it an experiment is fun)

    Addendum 12/21/25

    Fast forward to today, Then we look back.

    That restored site did not last long, it was full of malware, put in there by bad actors that had installed a backdoor login. And my new hosting company was just frustrating as can be. Even when I said “please, load the site in an offline editor, remove that phantom login, because if you leave it and the site goes live, it’ll take me a good 30 seconds to log in to delete that, and we know it’ll be too late.” And they disconnected.

    Years passed. I thought about it, a lot, tried to study to figure out how to clean the files. I didn’t want to lose all the writing I’d already done. But, it was frustrating, and if you know ADD, well, frustration leads to shutdown. At least with me. And every time I tried again, a new frustration shut me down, again.

    This time, and many of you will dislike this solution but, I used ChatGPT to fix things. I was able to upload the files, and after some questions and clarifications, it found the bad entries, and removed them. No coding needed from me, whew.

    Next step was getting the site live, WITHOUT having to talk to anyone at my hosting site. and ChatGPT walked me through that, as well. Being honest with it was great. There was understanding of how I might shut down, so it measured how to talk, lots of justified praise, and no failure talk, ever.

    Then, after some DNS foolishness, and waiting for AGES, it’s live again, thank you very much. Virus free, and still full of pithy thoughts. I hope you will come back and say hi, it’d be great.

    Oh, and this original posting was lost, as it was written after the database dump, but the wayback machine had it, so it’s not lost after all.

    Same signoff as last time:

    Anyway, the site is back, if you care at all. Thanks and have a good day!

  • Musings on a Pandemic 2020 Relationship

    This isn’t going to be a well thought out post, no more than most, anyway. I do tend to ruminate on what I’m going to write over days or week, even years, sometimes. It just finally gets to the point where I have so many individual pithy comments or compelling reasons to write, that I finally do so. And then I sit, like I am now, and just start writing. No notes, just half formed thoughts at the top of my brain. That said…

    During this “unprecedented time,” I discovered things seemed somewhat familiar to me. Back in the bad times, the no-job-no-girlfriend-no-friends-no-hope era of my life, when I was self-isolating for social anxiety, not -distancing. And things were very like they are now. I wasn’t afraid of getting sick, or cooties, even, I was just afraid everyone that saw me would have something bad to say about me. And I was living in Maine, at the time. Those are a very forthright people. They don’t have any issue letting you know your jeans need washing, or your hair is unkempt, or even if your phone ringer is too loud. I just avoided leaving the apartment.

    Fortunately for my long-term survival, I’m actually pretty gregarious, and that didn’t change even when I hated myself and I projected that on the world. (It’s a phycological term. I didn’t act out and destroy things, or people. I “Projected” the feelings I had for myself in the eyes of other people of the world. They HAD to hate me as much as I hated myself, right?) So, the growing feelings of self-isolation was countered by my inner nature, and I had to stay in contact with people, in some way.

    I used chat apps to stay in contact. My best friend for term-life, (As I call him, now. He’s the subject of the lost a friend post I wrote a couple years ago.) some of my family, and folks back in Texas that I still cared about. (Though for the sister that lived in the same town I used my phone and called her. Radical, right?) And for the unknown people, I used random chat apps. Do you remember Chat Roulette? Is it even a thing, anymore?  It was this radical concept, back then. You log in with a username you picked, or you could accept the random one you were assigned. And then you hit a button, and you were connected with someone else who hitting the button at the same time. It didn’t happen immediately, every time, and you didn’t have to keep hitting the button. You hit it, waited, and within a few seconds, someone would pop into view. Yes, view, it was a video chat thing.

    And, of COURSE, that led to the problem with the entire app. You take random, and add anonymity, hence no accountability, and guess what you get? Dick pics, galore.   99 of 100 connected strangers that I saw were some dude exposing himself. And my settings said I preferred to talk to females. So either that setting was just for show, or perhaps all the guys registered as female, or their settings of “I want to connect to anyone” overrode my settings, but I saw a LOT of guys, with lots of beer bellies, and lots of Vienna sausages without the tin cup.

    That amused me for about 10 minutes, and then I deleted the app, and didn’t go back. Then there was Omeagle. Same sort of app, but chat only, so not so many dick pics, but a lot of M for F, you F? Or just the F? actually.  If I actually connected to a girl, there was no assurance they really were female. But it was a connection, of a sort, and that app was useful, for a little while.

    Flash forward to today. I do have a job, and I am fond of myself, so I’m much improved. But WFH and staying home to avoid the COVID mess is seriously familiar.  I don’t call out, much, but Skype is a daily work tool, and there are new chat apps all the time, and I have used them, just because. One that I have used for a few years is kinda both cool and flawed. You can use it anonymously, just create a username, and chat in rooms, or privately in Direct Message with a single user. There is also a function where you can just randomly chat with someone. You can set your own profile to not accept these, but I leave mine open, just for fun. And it sometimes is fun. Sometimes it’s a dick pic. But not as much as otherwise.

    On this app, you can report folks, and it has a function where an offender can get tossed in app jail, where they are not allowed general chat for a period of time, and they lose benny points.  (Benny points can be used to make your avatar prettier, or even disallow people with too few of their own benny points to DM you.) Also, you can block a person from chatting with you. If you’re blocked, you cannot DM them, and even more significantly, you cannot see anything that person says in a public channel. So, there’s more accountability there. A jailed user can create a new profile, and keep harassing, of course, it’s still anonymous. But the random thing is still random, and I have never had a random chat person contact me twice with different user accounts. (Unless they were really sly, I guess.)

    I don’t have long-term chats with Randoms, though. Typically, they pop up, I say hi, and they ask how I am, I respond, our locations are disclosed, and sometimes that prompts more chat. Sometimes, they just stop talking, and on occasion, I get blocked. (Just the other day, a random popped up, and I thought it went well. Then “She” said “I need to get some sleep. Bye” and blocked me! Didn’t just sign off, blocked me. That was new. If I said something really offensive, I could see it, but “Hi, yeah, I’m in Oregon, just north of you!” seems innocuous enough. It’s not like I’m going to drive south just for 5 hours to breathe on her.)

    But once in a blue moon, something good comes up. Like this time. A little over a month ago, (or 2 months, even, it’s been a while, and months run together lately) a person hit me up. I think it was a random, but then again, I’m not sure. Because random chats start with a script that pops up in my window. “Hi, I’d like to have a chat with you. Or, you can block me. If you want to chat, say hi!” or something like that. It’s standard, and happen all the time.  This time, it didn’t happen, but I will allow that a technical glitch might have happened, too. But I will say that I don’t think she found me in a room I chat in, and DMed me from there. I wasn’t in any rooms that day, and in fact had kind of stopped chatting in the rooms anyway. The anime room I liked tended to devolve into arguments, the Oregon room was just banal, and other rooms had similar distasteful auras after a while.  So, I just log on, check messages (Usually there aren’t any) and gather my daily bonus bennys. The app notifies me to “Check your messages”, and I hate the little red spot that sticks on the app if I ignore it, so I check in.

    On this day, after I logged in, I got a chat bubble. I looked, and it was a person just saying hi. No script, but I had never met this person, so I just assumed it was random, and the script failed. I’ll never know the truth of the matter, I don’t think. (Then again, there is a room she might have found me in, that I’d never expect her in, except recently I found out she likes more extreme things than I first thought. So maybe in that weird room with the funny stories?) But she said hi, I said hi back, and she asked if I’d send her a gift. (A gift costs bennys and it grants the receiver with half of the bennys you spend.) She didn’t promise to do anything in return, just asked for a rose. I was charmed by this honesty, and sent her one. 

    This prompted further communication. I asked why she asked for it, and she told me she wanted to build one of those chat walls. I get that, girls on the app are inundated with chats, whether they want them or not. And we just kept chatting.

    Before we go any further, I was to stipulate that she’s a real female. We’ve been chatting for ages, now, and from little things to bigger ones, she hasn’t triggered any bells that she’s not what she says she is. I have very good radar, after all these years. Sometimes I still chat with a fake, if they are amusing enough, but only for a time. And if they ask for money, I just cut them off.

    [Aside: a few months ago, another random chat went further than the app. Due to the apps restrictions, (No url links, you can’t even mention a different chat app by name, and even the word Porn will get  you in trouble) we moved to another chat app. And she upfront asked for some money. Just $20, and I just liked how she didn’t game me, so I sent it to her. We stayed talking for a few months, but she was too wild for me in the end, and I haven’t heard from her in ages. I’m a softy, but only in certain cases.]

    Lily and I have been chatting for a while, now. And I know there’s no honest way we’ll be together. She lives half a world away, and in a family that would faint if she dated a white dude. But even so, I’m very fond of her. We have deep differences that don’t matter, we use them as learning opportunities. And we have similar interests that we enjoy mentioning to each other. Like Scrubs. She’s a medical intern, and Scrubs is one of my favorite shows of all time, so I had to ask her if she’d ever seen it. She hadn’t, and we spent a good amount of time trying to find it for her to watch. And she needed it with English subtitles, so help her understand English better, as well as just understand it, of course. (She complains that I speak too fast, so no way that show is easy. LOL) I looked into finding her with region appropriate DVD sets, even, but it turns out she watches everything on her phone, doesn’t even have a TV, much less a DVD player. Millennials.

     She doesn’t have Hulu there and they don’t have Scrubs on her Hulu anyway. I thought maybe Netflix but no dice there, either. (International licensing is both interesting, and mind-blowingly dull. Enjoy that dichotomy) After many other ideas were thought of and tossed out, she finally found it on a streaming service she has access to, with subtitles. This took a week or more, but I don’t think she was looking as hard as I was. This is one of the warning signs I should have paid some attention to.

    She’s a busy person, she is a medical intern, with all that entails, 12-hour shifts, not a lot of time left after working, eating and sleeping. Plus, she has a roommate, and a food delivery service that she has to pay. (Yeah, she has food delivered every day, lucky girl) And the guy that runs that service is like an uncle to her, so if he comes by, she is gone for a while chatting with him. But she still finds time to say hi to me and chat for good amounts of time, and that makes me feel pretty special.

    She also has other guys she chats with in the App. Her bennys went up so fast, I had to ask her why. Turns out she’s a pretty big flirt in the channels she chats in, posts sexy pictures on occasion, and that leads to lots of gifts. I did ask her why she never sent me a sexy pic. She told me “We’re friends, Friends don’t share sexy pics.”

    Oh, goodness. The Friend Zone. I know that route so well, I can sell guided tours. “On your left, is the study buddy you were attracted to so much, you helped her study poetry. You both got an A, and she celebrated with her boyfriend that was not you.” On the right, is the fluffy girl that likes you, and she says it clearly, but you demurred because you liked her friend, and she calls you every name in the book, and turns that friend against you.” And so on. Still, the sting is the same, no matter how many times you hear it. At least that’s my feeling.

    And she has troubles too, of course, over the course of two days, she lost over 100K of her bennys, she called some guy a name (that he likely earned, but it’s still not allowed) and he reported her, and off to jail she went, for 24 hours, and a lost of half her treasure. Then the next day, a guy she told no to, reported her for something bogus, and she got jailed, again, and her Benny level was down at mine, after. And they don’t give bennys back, even if it’s a bogus report. And the guy kept claiming he didn’t do it, but she knows he did.

    This is another warning sign, to me. She’s more invested in this app that I am. I had almost deleted it a few times, but just didn’t. She’s literally the only person I chat with on it, at all. But I’m not the only person she chats with, of course. She likes the abilities that bennys provide, I could care less. She says hi, I respond quickly. I say hi first, it might take a while. I know and accept that.  There’s a power differential there, and it rankles, but I know it’s how it must be.

    She has rules, she won’t ever be non-anonymous. She won’t ever give her phone number, email address, or any other chat app handle out. This is the only app anyone can talk to her on. (Well, there’s also this board game app, a lot like Sorry! And you can actually talk on it while you play the game, and she has a nice voice, but it’s just as anonymous. That’s how I know I talk too fast for her, she complained to me about it.) and that kind of comes up on occasion.

    Like when we started talking about movies. I have an extensive movie collection. So many that there are some I haven’t even watched yet, but I will someday. And I have been doing the work of moving my collection into the cloud. And there’s an app called Movies Anywhere that has being making that very nifty. They even have a new Pandemic prompted feature called Watch Together. If you and another person (with a MA account) have the same movie in your libraries, you can fire up Watch together, and watch in at the same time, emojis and stuff available to pop on screen during it. And if the other person does not have the title, there’s another feature called Screen Time. I can loan out a movie to a person (again, they have to have a MA account) and they have it to watch for a couple days, free. And you can Watch Together a loaned movie! It’s a super cool thing that is great for our current times. (Netflix and Xbox 360 had that ability back 10 years ago. It was called Watch party, and you could watch with your avatars on the front row, MST3K style, or not, and voice chat was also possible, with Xbox Plus chat. They stopped that ages ago. Although Netflix brought it back with browser support, not Xbox, recently, and I don’t think there’s voice chat. I haven’t tried it, though.)

    And in talking, she discovered I had some movies she really wanted to see, and I was very willing to watch with her. So, we start making plans, and I tell her that’ll be great, you just need to make sure MA is an app there. We made more plans, like I have to be up at 4AM on Saturday, so she can watch after work that day. I’m ready, and I ask her to make sure she has the app. Then I remind her, the way this works, I have to send a link to the movie to be loaned, and another link for the watch together, and the chat app will not allow links. I promise her that this isn’t why I brought up the movie thing, and it wasn’t. I do think it was a nice side-effect, of course. A little of her breaking down that chat wall, and letting me feel as special to her as she does to me.

    A few days into this, she finally lets me know that app isn’t in her country. If it were me, and I was told to check for an app I would have done it right away, she takes a few days. She had told me earlier, back in the Scrubs finding days, that her internet is really poor when she’s at home. Probably too many users online at that time, very common in big neighborhoods, of course. So, while at work, she’s busy looking busy enough to not get in trouble, and can chat a bit, but I guess looking for an app would be too obvious, so she never did it at work. And then when she first gets home, she needs to shower, eat, talk to roommate, etc. and so might not remember to look, and then it’s evening, and her internet is too spotty to download an app. So, I get why it might take her a few days. But it still rankles, as I’m such a geek, a new app is fun. Why wait to get it? *sigh* And it’s so we can share stuff, and I want to share.

    But now that app isn’t there, I’d been googling about it already, and knew MA was going to be there, someday, but isn’t there, yet. And I’m frustrated by this.  And I’m chatting with her, letting her know my frustration, and my wish it would have worked. Then, I have a couple other ideas, I could add her as family on Play Movies, or Amazon Prime, the movies we want to watch are on both platforms, that’s one of the reasons MA exists, to share movies with other provides. All my movies on Vudo might not be on MA, but EVERYTHING on MA is on Vudu, iTunes, Prime movies, Play movies, even Fandango (yes, it’s still a thing). And it was my thought we could use the family share thing of one of those.

    But here’s the rub. That would take a LOT more personal contact than she has been willing to offer. Yes, she had agreed, however passively, to the link issue, though we never talked specifics. But to make her part of my family requires a full email address, if not more. And that would just freak her out, I’m sure. Again, I don’t blame her for the caution. She’s on the front lines as a hospital worker, and the front lines of a family that is very stern with her. She’s in the front lines of dating, as a pretty woman in county that cannot be described as Woke in anyone’s estimation. She’s sexually liberated in a place where that’s looked down on, severely in times. She’s got reason to guard her privacy.

    On the other hand, I know she can trust me, and I think she knows that too. We are friends, and she means the world to me. So why did it get so grumpy when started thinking of the other ideas?

    First, she was not chatting very often. She wasn’t saying why she was so slow, either people in the house, flirt talk with other guys, active talk in a chat room about a festival being cancelled due to COVID concerns, all possible. But I just knew I wanted to figure this out, and I can’t do it on my own. She was talking 10-15 minutes to get back to me. And every pause made me think more and more things.

    I’m a forward thinker, you might have guessed that from my writings. I game out scenarios on a daily basis, to see where things might end up, if I do this, or I do that. It goes back to my youth, now that I think about it. Way back in my adolescence, I used to have very realistic dreams, and then days or even months later, I’d see what I dreamt playing out in real life. A dream wouldn’t even be active in my mind, actually. I would just feel a sense of déjà vu that was very strong. I’d look at the scene in front of me, and an overlay would settle into place, and I knew, without hesitation what was coming next. It wasn’t really mind-blowing stuff. I saw a car, and knew the driver would get out, then have to shut the door quickly, and press up against the car to avoid another car barreling too close. Or a Ferris wheel, one time, stopping suddenly, mid-rotation, and kids yelling. Very often, I didn’t know how the dream ended as I was watching events play out, but sometimes, I knew the end, and I would just watch for it. It was really fun, till it wasn’t.

    One time, I had a dream that was very clear, I can call it up to this day, in full clarity. But as the time, I had forgotten it, completely. And when things started to look familiar, a sense of dread came over me, thought I didn’t know why. And I just started acting differently than my half-formed memory. And the dread went away, and I was better.  The dream came back, fully, as a memory after that instinctual reaction, and I’m glad did what I did. I’ll write a full post on that event someday.  But for these purposes, that caused me to always think of a way out, or through, or back, every time I think of an event that is to come.

    Funny thing, though, no matter what I think, it never comes to pass, not exactly like I consciously thought, ever. (I still have dreams that always seem to play true, but I, out of habit, start babbling a poem, and the déjà vu goes away.) I might think I could get fired, or suspended, and game out every scenario that might cause that, and when the event happens, it’s something totally outside of my imagination. The time I got fired at the medical foam place for example. I knew I was gonna face consequences, but what happened was a surprise.

    Yet, I can’t stop myself, I just think through eventualities, all the time. And significant to my predictions, even though specific events don’t match up, my track record of predicting outcomes is pretty solid. I might know I’d fail, I just don’t know the method the failure will take. I might know something will work, but not how it’ll end up working.

    So, when she told me the app wasn’t there, and I said, “Yeah, I looked, and it’s not there, yet.” (I should have looked long before that day. I had been trusting her to look, as I’m trying not to be a man-splainy guy, but she didn’t for a long time, so I finally started looking on my own. Right then, she finally decided to look herself. Synchronicity.) And I said “Well, I can think of a couple other options…” and waited for her to answer. And it took a long time. In the intervening minutes, my brain went into future thought. She would have to share her email, at the very least, I’d have to promise to never email her. She’d have to be talked into it. I’d have to be really cautious. I’d have to put myself out there further, in some way. And she’d say no.

    By the time she did get back to me, I’d gamed it out a million times, and it always came down to no. There was no yes to be found, in any scenario. This made me even more cranky. I was already frustrated MA wasn’t there, but she was taking a long time to respond, and I started thinking the other guys she was flirty with were occupying her time, and that made me mad at the friend zone thing, and then when she finally responded, my scenarios had failed, again, as she didn’t even respond to my idea proposal with a ‘what’s that?’ or “how can we do this?’ She just said something perfectly nice, but unrelated to anything we were chatting about. My mind went white. 

    I told her I was getting cranky, and it was near her bedtime, anyway, so just go to bed, I’ll be back later, and signed off.

    Then, I started REALLY thinking. Our differences were so great, I was setting myself up for a fall the entire time. I’m too old, too white, and too far, and those are the easy truths. Why would I let myself get so close to her, that I want to do things for her. I shared Scrubs, and she does love it, but why go any further? I’m not comfortable in power imbalances. I just am not. Not if I have more power, or the other person does. And she has ALL the power. She says hi, I respond immediately. I say hi, it might be hours. She asks for a rose, I give. I don’t ask. If she wanted my phone number, it’s hers for the asking, my email, my social security number, even. Yeah, I went way too far in how I care for her. Not only was all the power in her, I gave her some of mine, without noticing it. She’s honest enough that she didn’t take advantage of that, at all, if she even noticed.

    And that’s the other part. I notice everything about her, that she allows me to. I offer her anything I have, freely, but she doesn’t pay attention. Plainly, I care about her more than she cares for me. And that’s not healthy for me. Even though she won’t abuse that imbalance, if I can sit here and get cranky about it, then I’m doing it to myself. This is not the way I want it to be.

    The next time she said hi, I popped onto the app promptly, as always, but told her I needed some time, I’m not happy. She asked me why. I told her I don’t want to talk about it. She pushed, I pushed back, said NO! But still she asked. I finally told her that if I told her what I was cranky about, it would hurt her, and I didn’t want that. And it would, and I didn’t. I know that it’s all my fault, all my thinking, she is not contributory to this particular grump. She is part of it, of course, but it’s all my own thinking that had put me in this state.

    I needed to write this out so that I can have her read it. Typing all this into chat would not work she’d interrupt with questions, denials, or confusion, and I’d be like Doug in Up and go “Squirrel!” at one or another of her comments, and never get my thesis clarified.  This is just as much for me as for her. I need to figure out my own screwed-up brain. This is Write Therapy, I guess.

    If you’re fan of my writing, I just have to ask, really? I post so very infrequently, I don’t get it. But thank you. I have mental blocks about writing, so I can’t write unless the words are figuratively pushing themselves out of my brain, as is this case.

     She’s still sending chats every little bit. The first day, after I insisted for my need for space to think this out, she messaged every couple hours, then again, 12 hours later, and again, 24 hours.  I’m at 48 hours, now, and she sent another gentle query, and I know I have missed talking to her, and I want to get back to that. So, I sat down to write this stream of consciousness. Then she can read it, and I won’t have to say it again.  Right now, she’s likely in bed, so I won’t chat her back, even if I’ve finished this screed. I might just send a message to read my new article and see how it goes.

    (I gamed it out, and it’s not good, so I have to live with that)

  • I had an Idea for Breakfast…

    So, I picked up this little pan at the grocery store, just because it was cute. I’ve used it a few times, and it’s proved useful, and I keep finding new ideas just for it.

    Small, Non-Stick, Silicone handle, oven-safe.

     I spayed it with olive oil, then added some deli-style ham I had. (This ham was the germ of the idea, it seemed to me that the ham was just about the right size and shape for the pan. I didn’t measure, just imagined it in my head. Not a bad fit, if not perfect.

    Right Shape, almost the right size.

    Took two eggs, added some Parmesan and a bit of milk.

    Two Eggs
    A little Parmesan, and a dab of milk.

    Stir well.

    Stir, Stir, Stir

    Then carefully poured it in the pan, over the ham.

    Add eggs to pan

    This is my wonderful Cuisinart Air-Fry toaster over I received as a Christmas gift a couple years back. To this day, my favorite Christmas gift I’ve ever received.

    This will take store bought, cold fried chicken and make it taste fresh fried.
    (300 degrees for 5-6 minutes on Air-Fry)

    I put the pan in, and turned it on. Previous experiments with eggs in the air-fryer had me set it for 350 degrees and 4 minutes. 

    On the way to yum?

    After cooking, this is how it looked, tiny bit brown, maybe 3 1/2 minutes would be better?

    I did use an oven mitt to remove it. Though the silicone covering won’t melt, it does get hot.

    I flipped it over, and found the bottom completely covered the ham. I had actually hoped the ham would stay on the bottom and crisp up a bit. But that didn’t happen. Oh, well.

    Hmm, that didn’t go into the plan.

    It did taste great though, even without the crispy ham.

    It was yummy. Nor bad for the first try.

    . Maybe next time I’ll try cooking the ham first, then adding the eggs. Even if the eggs surround the ham, it might still stay crispy? Of course, I could try this all on the stove top. The pan will work there, too.

  • Jane the Virgin is like a Crossword Puzzle

    I watched the very first episode of Jane the Virgin when it first aired, and I wasn’t immediately won over. It was too convoluted, too melodramatic, and too many other things that I knew I’d have to be in the right mood to watch.

    Well, I ended up recording it all, anyway, and started watching again yesterday, and have been ever since. Yes, it’s convoluted, yes, melodramatic, and the farce level is beyond belief. Yet, I am drawn to watching this, now. I think it’s mainly because of the convolutions of it all.

    Yes, it’s over-the-top, but the narrator really keeps you interested, the on-screen texting helps a great deal, and the occasional on-screen captions explaining this or that character keeps the humor level and the melodrama at a nice balance. And I like puzzles, very much. Give me a good mystery, and I’m hooked.

    Back when I was a kid, there was this show: The Ellery Queen Mysteries, I think its name was. I don’t remember a lot of specifics, actually. The lead had brown hair, and it was curly, I think. But I do remember the format, and it was awesome. Ellery would wander around the show, finding clues, yet the audience was not filled into any of them explicitly. And the bad guy was never revealed until Ellery revealed him. And then there’d be a “Did you figure it out? Here are the clues you COULD have seen (but probably missed)” segment.

    I loved that, that I’d get to compete with Ellery Queen himself. And I remember solving a couple of them before the reveal, even at my young age. (My mom helped, a lot.) [I don’t remember when the show was on, and I’m resisting the impulse to look it up. My memory tells me it was when I was in my adolescence, and since I’m telling this from my memory, as honestly as I’m able, I’m not going to “cheat.”] It was a fun show, and I was very sad when it wasn’t on any longer. At least until the next thing caught my attention. But I guess it made a pretty good impact on me, since I do remember it, on occasion, when I compare to other, more current shows. (And I find the newer ones a bit lacking, honestly.)

    I also remember the Sunday Night Mysteries, that would cycle through several shows. Columbo, McCloud, even Nightstalker, back then, were among them. I think Kojak even started there before it got its own time-slot. Of those, Columbo was the closest to Ellery Queen Mysteries. The bad-guy was revealed to the audience earlier, but they kept the suspense up by making Columbo not tell all his clues to catch him until the end of the show.

    I think I’ve always had a real connection to a mystery, if it’s well told. The current crop reveals the bad-guy really fast, and sometimes the clues found are just fictional magickery. (C.S.I: Cyber is a real good example of that.) But I still tend to like them, if only a bit. The thing that keeps me, and I imagine the rest of the audience, coming back is the interpersonal stories. The character arcs are what compel me to see the next episode. Back in the Ellery Queen days, there was no real character continuity, other than “How will Ellery solve the newest murder?” But I still miss the chance to compete against the hero.

    Now, Jane the Virgin does have a murder mystery in it. But that’s only one, rather minor, plot point. There’s the botched insemination event, her father reemerging, a wedding, the new love, a divorce, the mob, a controlling mother, a passive-aggressive grandmother, step-step-sisters, a good-for-nothing brother dating a best friend, and on and on. It’s a massive pile of puzzles that keeps me tuning in to the next one. The humor is not to be dismissed. I think it’s the only thing that gets me past the melodrama.

    And one of the biggest mysteries, to me, is this: Is this what a real Telenovela is like? I mean, I’ve seen a lot of them, and understood maybe 10% of them. I had a girlfriend who understood Spanish once, but she didn’t really like Telenovelas, so poo-pooed any question I had about them. But it seems to me this show is one, if mostly in English. And if it is, then I can see how folks can get wrapped up in them. They’re like Soaps on steroids. No regard for realism, or an even hand toward dialog. It’s all heavy, yet goofy, farcical, even.

    Frankly, I don’t like farces, much. I hated the last few seasons of 30 Rock, because it got more and more farcical, and hated The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmitt because it STARTED that way. 3rd Rock from the Sun got a pass, because John Lithgow is just that good, but it was pretty out there, as well. (Makes sense for a Space Alien Show to be Out There, no?) But I’m enjoying this one, and I decided to sit down and figure out why.

    And I think I did: the puzzles. It’s more than the murder part, it’s how things are all fitting together, and the entire tapestry of the story being revealed episode by episode. It’s like a really good crossword puzzle. One that I sit over and think about each clue, and try an fit the right words into the spaces, so that it all fits in one lovely, completed puzzle.

    I do crossword puzzles most every day, but sometimes, I’ll go a day or two without. I just don’t feel the need to turn my brain on 100% for a bit. I once went over a year without doing any puzzles, and I didn’t really miss it.

    And that’s how I feel Jane the Virgin is going to be for me. I’ve been writing this for about an hour now, and I haven’t been missing the show. And I’m mid-season. I’m sure I’ll pick it up easily if I do start watching it again. (And I will, re: previous post, I AM a bitter-ender.) But, I can say this with some real certainty. Once I reach the end of this show, I don’t think I’ll need to watch another season of it. If it ends on a cliffhanger, I’ll be a bit miffed, but this show has SO MANY threads, that if one or two end up hanging, who cares, so many others will be resolved.

    This show does a VERY good job of showing that life is complicated, but if you do miss out on a little bit here and there, it’s not the end, you just move on. And that’s like this show, and presumably Telenovelas in general. Watch, quit, pick it up again years later, and you’ll be caught up in no time. The opening monologue of the Narrator, (a character that would be missed), that’s comedy, in itself. I think I could edit together the first minute of each episode to make a really funny and concise summary of the entire season. (I haven’t looked, but I’m willing to bet someone did that already, and it’s on YouTube.)

    But I have already reached that point of my brain being too tired to watch the show, as made obvious of me writing this post. I don’t mean my brain gets tired. (Otherwise I wouldn’t be writing, that takes a lot of brain-power, I’ll have you know.) But I do mean it’s tired of processing this amount of silliness, of this show. The show is contrived. Funny, imaginative and the acting is spot-on, but it’s all a life I would NEVER live, and so I can’t identify with any one character. A pretty significant reason to watch any show, in my opinion.

    Yet, it’s fun enough to make it through my 3 episode testing, and since I have the entire season recorded, I will watch it all, and be done. But I’m deleting the season pass, because I know I won’t want this, next year. I’ve satisfied that bit of curiosity, and found it fun to visit, but I am not moving there.

  • How I’d not be Ra’s al Ghul, and other thoughts

    I started writing this as I’m binge-watching the last half seasons of The Flash and Arrow from The CW. I loved Arrow when it first started, but my interest waned the more dark it became. With the introduction of The Flash, though, I felt I had to maintain interest in Arrow because, if nothing else, there is a pretty strong connection of the two shows, and I would hate to miss any nuances if I didn’t watch both.

    Let me just say, I’m a bitter-ender, and a completist, though not exclusively. I stopped watching Battlestar Galactica before they revealed the last Cylon, mainly because I felt strongly about how the writers totally changed the character of Tory as soon as she figured out she was a Cylon. (Oh, I’m one of the evil ones, I guess I’ll space Cally to show it.) And I left Lost before season 5 ended, because it was just becoming too silly to bear. And, from numerous sources, I feel quite vindicated on giving up on both, as the endings I read about would have pissed me off for all the wasted hours I watched. At least I wasted a few less than many.

    But, as I still hold some residual affection for Arrow, and truly am enjoying The Flash, keeping both on my radar has some significance to me. Leaning into my completism, I even went so far as to create a spreadsheet of the two shows, and their air dates, to make sure I watched them in order, so that I could keep crossovers and shared character appearances in some semblance of shared-world timeline. And I have to say, The CW is doing a good job of making sure things don’t get mixed up, time-wise, IF you watch them in this order. Watching all of one season and then the other, well, it would be really confusing, or at least a bit of a spoiler on one viewing, and a letdown of the other. So, if I do ever buy the DVD/Blu-rays of the series, I’ll have to buy both series, to keep things straight. Expensive and something I’ll have to truly ruminate on, if I ever decide to do that. (The MCU is getting to be a problem, in that way. I have really been disappointed in Marvel’s Agent’s of S.H.E.I.L.D. for so many reasons, that I won’t go into here, that I decided it’s one aspect of the MCU that I will never buy, unless it’s on a discount rack, perhaps. But I am getting every other bit I can, when I can.)

    Here we come to the meat of my thesis. As of Suicidal Tendencies, Oliver was being pressured to take over the mantle of Ra’s al Ghul, and over the next three episodes, The League of Assassins were making things very tough for him. Killing people and being seen in green hoods to implicate him in the crimes. Even isolating him from his own team by making it impossible for him to even tell them of the ‘prophesy.’ And in Broken Arrow, when things were clearing up for Oliver, but not for the Arrow, Ra’s himself goes and mortally wounds Thea. Making it seem as though Oliver has no choice but to be the head of the League.

    Oliver is all mentally twisty and screwed up by all of this, of course. And he gets darker and darker, and is just losing his mind with grief, and not finding any answers to his conundrum. And I’m just finding a real lack of imagination in the writers’ minds here. I mean, honestly, Oliver, as portrayed on The Arrow, is portrayed as something of a thug with gadgets, but the history of the character, in the DC comics continuity, he’s always been a true genius with a mission. He’s Bruce Wayne with a passion for archery instead of bats. Rich, ultra smart, and a real detective in sussing out crimes, motives, and techniques of criminals, and using that information for his own advantage. Now, although the genius part is muted in the show, I feel he still is one, if only to invent all the gadgetry he has. Now, Felicity certainly helps him refine things, but the main ideas all should be coming from his mind.

    Given that, he should still have the mental capacity to figure out the way from this mess. Yet, all he does is mope and let other people do things for him. “You have to learn to let people help you.” Yes, I get that, and he should, too. [Side-bar, why does he have to learn everything twice? That lesson of learning to accept help was told in the same episode, twice. Once in ‘real’ time, and once in flashback. I’ve noticed a few other instances of this. Flashbacks are supposed to be filling the audience in about how his mental state came to be so screwed up, I get that. But lessons learned in the past SHOULD carry through in the present. Instead, he learns a lesson in flashback, forgets and relearns it again in the present. Pretty stupid, if you ask me. Those that forget the past, and all that.] But as he’s accepting the help from others, he should be scouring the web for answers of his own. That’s what I’d be doing, and I’m not claiming to be a genius, just a guy that does think things through.

    Off the top, I think my main argument to Ra’s al Ghul would go thusly: “Ra’s, do you really think I’m ‘destined’ to take over. Seriously, think this through. I’ve made a commitment to NOT kill anymore, ever. So that means I can’t kill you, or the other assassins, so it makes it tougher for me to get out of this, so I have to accept it, right? But think about this. I take the mantle, and now I’m the Head of the Demon, and this League of Assassins now has to fanatically follow MY orders. Okay, my first order, ‘We don’t kill, ever.’ Pretty hard orders for assassins, right? But they have to follow them. Until they don’t. Pretty soon one of them is going to start thinking, ‘I could be in charge, we can go back to being what we are. I just have to kill him.’ And I’ll bet it won’t even take long. I pronounce my rule, and stabby stabby, I’m dead.”

    “And you, old Ra’s, you started this little insurrection by picking ME as your successor. Not a good legacy, is it? You’re revered for centuries, and the next thing thought of you is, ‘And he picked THIS guy to replace him? What a tool.’ Your own daughter would kill me, and spit on your grave after. So, really are you SURE you want me?”

    Of course, this doesn’t happen, so Ra’s does everything in his power, as he’s still bent on Oliver as ‘the prophesied one’, to turn Oliver back into a killer. Almost kill Thea, (Check) kill all of Team Arrow (attempted), turn the whole city so far against him so that he basically has to kill to survive (yeah, and kill the whole city, too. No need for forgiveness, there, eh?)

    Well, Ron is exiled, and Thea has been stabbed pretty thoroughly. Okay, yeah, she MIGHT survive. I haven’t watched Fallen, yet. But I have to say, once Ra’s al Ghul stabs somebody, they are supposed to be dead. Pretty much his reputation rides on that. Otherwise, the whispers are back, ‘Dude, he’s getting soft, that’s two people he DIDN’T kill that he wanted dead. I think I’ll take my chances. You can next be calling me Ra’s.’

    (I did have a minor theory about how he could tell Ra’s al Ghul that the Lazarus pits wouldn’t accept him, so his reign would be short. You know, if your mind is not at harmony, they reject you? And how Oliver is leading a league of killers, but doesn’t believe in killing, well, EJECT. But I looked it up, and turns out Lazarus pits are pretty non-judgmental in that regard. They just make you pretty insane for a bit. Now, if you’re healthy, they just kill you, there’s that. Oh, and if you’re already insane, they make you sane, briefly. (Joker, in one instance) But conflicting ideas, non-harmonious thoughts or whatever, no bigs, so I had to toss that idea.)

    And, now, Fallen. So Thea’s back, and Oliver is Wareeth al Ghul, Heir to the Demon. Lost that gambit, didn’t he. I’m hating this show, more than ever. It’s very near driving me away from it, while still keeping me with The Flash. Talk about a twist in my soul. Sheesh.

    I don’t think this was intentional, but watching in date order the two shows offers a very nice benefit. Just when the angsty dark of Arrow is about to be too much, The Flash is lighter, funner, and a real relief. Then back to the cesspool of Arrow, rinse, repeat. I am VERY glad that the seasons of both end with The Flash.

    In Rogue Air, there’s a pretty bad disconnect. Ollie is back, helping Barry take down Wells. This seems way out of sync with the date order. I do know, because twitter has spoiled me in many ways, that Oliver does end up as Ra’s al Ghul, and then passes the mantle right away. But his appearance in Central City, as a good guy, (In black studded hood, mind you) seems to take place AFTER the episode that would air the day following this one. But, that’s not really true. In My Name is Oliver Queen, the favor Ollie asked Barry in Rogue Air is now being done, so the time-line is intact. Just that niggling issue of how in HELL did Ollie get time off in the middle of a wedding, and Ra’s not letting him out of his sight? That was just weak writing, they had to make things fit, and they used a shoehorn, this time.

    This is part and parcel of my problem with the writers this season. I already posited my idea of how Ollie would get out of it. Yeah, I know, he survived Ra’s al Ghul’s sword, and so he’s destined, yadaa yadaa. But technically, so did Thea, and do you see anyone saying SHE’S destined? Nope, of course not, she only survived because of the Lazurus Pit. So what? The Prophesy says nothing about surviving without it, just surviving it. Writers, you’re really getting lazy, here. You ignore things that don’t fit, and force things to fit that are unwieldy. And, as it proves, out, there’s yet another person who survived the Sword of the Demon. I’m betting there are any number of them that could fulfil the prophecy. Why in hell was Ra’s so hard up on Ollie? Sounds like a man-crush.

    Writers, I get that you needed a big-bad this season, but you out wrote yourselves. If you paint yourself into a corner, walk on the paint and repaint over your steps, Don’t blast a damn hole in the wall and keep painting. (You do get I’m talking the well-worn idea or ret-conning, right? Comics do it all the time. You should too, next time you start forcing things just to fit. Make something up that fixes the problem, not just add more tonnage of Band-Aid.)

    The entire Ollie being forced into leadership of the Guild of Assassins was a bad idea from the start, and they never should have tried it. I mean, truly, the logical person to take over was always Bruce Wayne, he TRAINED with Ra’s himself. Heck, even Matt Murdoch did, but Ollie never did, so it honestly makes NO sense he’d be the one to take over. And the comics did try to make both Batman and Daredevil take over, at one point or another, and in all cases, was headed off with logic, not plans, fights, and what have you. This entire season was a waste of my time. And I want it back, CW, with interest.

    Oh, and not for nothing, the stocking cap they have Ollie wear in the flashbacks? Really stupid idea. I get that it’s supposed to represent he has hair, and is shot when he’s got all manner of haircuts beside long and scraggly, but it looks REALLY stupid. It looks like one of the mushroom people in Marioland. Honestly, makeup and props are not winning any awards for that.

    The real Speedy (and I knew Thea would be called that, instead of Arsenal or Red Arrow, as soon as she showed up in the outfit. Good to know the writers were on the same wavelength.) Her making an appearance in the Red leathers, that was a treat, and it followed a logical progression. It was a forced progression, like many of the plots this season, but this one I was delighted to see, so I’ll let it go.

    Finally, marrying Nyssa so that she’s not a rival, that made some sense, if you’re Ra’s al Ghul. But I’ll say this, marrying a woman that has shown NO interest in the males of the species, does not make for a long-lasting relationship, even for State reasons. At least it’s a lock he has grounds for an annulment, as they never “fulfilled the marriage contract.” Good, that.

    Now Ollie has “retired” and drove, LITERALLY, off into the sunset. If The Arrow doesn’t get renewed, it’s as good as ending as I could expect. Of course, a quick look at the news shows that it’s been renewed, so we’ll have to see how they’ll bring him back. Somehow, they’ll have to get Starling city to forgive the Arrow, otherwise, they’ll have to change the name of the show, right? I guess we’ll have to watch DC’s Legends of Tomorrow to see how Ray survives that MASSIVE explosion. And I am sort of dreading/hoping for that show. I’m really liking how light and likeable Brandon Routh is as Palmer. But I don’t really like the idea of Villains being good guys. Wentworth Miller really carries of the seedy evil demeanor, and I don’t really think I can take that every single episode. And if this show ties into The Flash, and Arrow as snugly as those last two do now, it’ll be REALLY hard to quit any one of them, if I like any other.

  • I Lost a Friend Today

    Looks like I lost a friend today. Not today, really. I imagine he decided he didn’t need me in his life some time ago, and I’m just noticing it now.

    We’ve known each other for years, my entire adult life, really. Been through lots of ups and downs together, and had lots of ups and down separately. We were out of touch for long periods, as we only lived in the same vicinity for a couple years, early on. But those early years cemented a bond that I had thought, until now, unbreakable.

    The last few years, we’ve been in pretty steady contact. I have been going through some pretty serious down times, and he’s been there to prop me up, in most ways except the actual physical act. He’s helped me maintain this website. Even though I’ve been more or less neglectful of it over the years. Calling me to remind me the fees are coming due, asking if I need any help with the hosting.

    He made sure I had the basic reminders in place to get things working, and keep them working. I do have the propensity of withdrawing from life, so he’s been a steady hand in making sure I didn’t withdraw too far, or too permanently.

    But a few months ago, we had a fight. It was a very passive-aggressive one, and mostly on my side. He was helping me make sure I renewed this domain before time ran out, and I was pricing options, to make sure I had the best deal for domain, hosting and all that. I had another domain I was also maintaining, just as a backup, and the prices had increased dramatically since the promotion period, so I held off on renewing that, while I explored options.

    Turned out, the best option, price-wise, was to change hosting from the current provider, to the one my friend used. Of course, I didn’t have an account at the new hosting site, but my friend did, and he said I could use that to establish my own presence there.

    Now, I was a bit stuck on my current provider, and I was emailing back-and-forth with them to reduce the price. I figured I could present the proposed new fee offer from the new host, and they might price-match, and I wouldn’t have to change. The deadline for the change was approaching, but I was waiting to the last minute to commit.

    I thought my friend knew the deadline date, I had emailed him multiple times about the changes, and potential changes, dates included, and thought he knew. But, as it turns out, not so much.

    The final day for the deal arrived, and my current host hadn’t blinked, so I had to change to the new one. I called my friend, and told him I needed to do the thing, and he wasn’t available. He did call me back some hours after my first attempted contact, and told me he was in Las Vegas for some function. He’d forgotten the deadline date, and at this point, wasn’t able to do his part. He even asked if I was sure I’d let him know the dates needed. I was.

    Well, I was ticked off, frankly. He was a great friend, in all ways big and wonderful. Keeping my spirits up, my goals on track, all that. But he rarely remembered my birthday. Not that we exchanged gifts or celebrated together, but on his, I’d send an email, call, or text, anyway. He didn’t, and if reminded I had just had a birthday, he’d say “Oh, right. Cool.” If I had a big day coming up, an anniversary of something, new job interview, or proposal that he didn’t have anything to do with, he’d only acknowledge it if I brought it up.

    Little things, he let go past. Big things, he was there for, if he knew he could help, he did, and I’ll never fault him for that. But the little things that make a friendship seem comfortable, really, so that you know you’re not being taken for granted, those he tended to ignore.

    It was a bit frustrating, to feel more like a project than a buddy, and I just let it go, for the most part. I really care about this guy, and always wanted the best for him. I think of him daily, in fact, and have for ages. Even when we were both living our lives, far apart physically and temporally, I thought of him, and wondered what was going on in his life.

    Oh, man, I missed stuff, to be sure. I took the glowing memory of him for granted for a long time. He went through some REALLY dark periods I knew nothing about. He’s a pretty light natured person, really, so he didn’t bring stuff up that he didn’t like thinking about, with me, often. And even after I learned of those things, I just assumed he’d gotten over them. And in some cases, I was wrong, and it was tough admitting I’d failed him as a friend over these times.

    And these things were running in my head when he told me he’d forgotten, again. That’s how I thought of it, he’d forgotten something important to me, again. True, it doesn’t affect him, and he might even think it’s unnecessary that I do this thing, but that doesn’t mean he should exercise a “pocket veto” and use the excuse of forgetting.

    I was pissed. I texted him that he’d disappointed me for the last time, and we were done.  And I meant that, at the time. I was really, REALLY, pissed.

    And a couple months passed. Christmas came up, and I sent him a Google+ thingy saying “it’s the time or forgiveness, right?” and said I was sorry. No response. Didn’t really expect any. He had his family, and Christmas is for them, for sure. He might even be out of the country, as he does that, often.

    But I still hadn’t heard anything for a month or more, after. I didn’t really think anything of it, as we’d gone long months, even years without contact before. But a few weeks, ago,  I thought to send a direct message to him via twitter, and I found I couldn’t. He didn’t follow me, any longer. It was some anniversary for us, and thought it’d be nice to say hi, again. But I couldn’t. I figured he’d cleared out his follower list of idle twitterers, as you do, and I fell into that category. I was not really active on twitter for some time.

    But then I saw him posting a tweet about a current episode of his podcast, and I sent an @  reply asking “is this thing still on” not expecting anything immediately. I mean, that’s an auto-tweet from his blog, I didn’t expect him to be on twitter at that moment. He wasn’t an active tweeter, really. Just used twitter for marketing, and such.

    Today, though, I noticed the number of people I follow had gone down one.  Now, I had had an epic twitter argument the day before (see the post below) and found it likely that I’d been blocked by the participant in this argument, but that wasn’t the case. I didn’t go through my list of followers in detail, because I had an instinct, and decided to check that, first.

    And instincts proved accurate, this time. I went to his twitter page, and was informed I couldn’t see his tweets because I’m blocked. Hmm. Well, seems like he did unfollow on purpose, and now, took it to the next level and completely blocked me.

    I guess he’s pissed too, and too pissed to tell me why. I can imagine a whole lot of reasons, of course, but mind-reading is not really the best way to figure out the solution to fixing the issue. Truth is, there might be no solution. He might have simply given up on me, finally. I mean, I’d given up on myself ages ago, and he’s just finally climbing on board.

    It must have been a bit tough for him to actively give up, though. Passively is easy, everyone does that at some point, often even. Just don’t email someone for a while, or call them, sent a carrier-pigeon, whatever. (Actually, that last would be tougher. I mean, you have a pigeon-friend relationship, and I guess you’d just keep the other person’s pigeons and if he comes by to pick them from their coop, you’d hide them. A whole lot of work.) But you just stop maintaining contact, and that’s it. Things fall away.

    But this was active, to think, “Yep, I don’t want to hear from him, anymore. At all.” and block me on twitter. Next step would be to not answer the phone and let it go straight to voicemail (check), and after that?

    Well, I had this book, “Making Out in Japanese” it was phrase book for uncommon dating phrases. One of my favorites, (that I never did use) was “I don’t love you any longer, so I’m changing my phone number.” My friend and I laughed at that one numerous times. But that’s the next step. (Although in modern times, he can just block my number, I suppose. Less romantic, but he can keep his phone number, then.)

    Seems like I blew something else. Like I’ve blown a lot. I’m sorry I lost this one though. Lifelong friends like that are rare, and precious. Odds are way against finding another.

    I suppose I should also remove him from my resume references. *sigh*

     

  • Half-joke to Rant. How did that happen?

    I was having a pretty good day. Week, even. Killed in a job interview that I’ll find out about the end of the week. Got called for another interview this week. I’m hitting on all cylinders, so to speak, job-wise. I binge-watched Castle from Episodes 12 to 20, so I found resolution for the missing 2 months arc, and that’s good. It was a mild closure, but closure of that arc it was. I got my disability payment today. It always comes a bit earlier than the posted schedule, but it always feels good to get it early, just the same, even if it is a rather modest sum.  I bought dinner out, more than I could eat, even. I’ll have leftovers for breakfast. Yet another good feeling, one not common, lately. My insomnia seemed to be letting go. I’d just about managed to wrestle my “tired” to nighttime hours, so I can be more human than vampire, and that’s a challenge, let me tell you.

    As I was eating my dinner, and choosing what to watch off the DVR, I pulled out Twitter and started watching my threads. I’ve not been a good twitterer in the last few years, frankly. My carefully curated set of followers had fallen away, in a large part, to lots of abandoned accounts, and those not abandoned, don’t seem to pay any attention to me, any more. Not that I blame them. I did stop posting regularly, and as I found myself, there are a multitude of tools to help you unfollow “idle accounts.” My best friend of nearly 30 years no longer follows me. (I choose to think it was because he used one of those tools, rather than he actively unfollowed me on purpose.  But he could have given up on me, as well.)

    But I’ve been trying to get back into active twitter status. I went a couple weeks without anyone replying to me, on anything, then one or two replies, and one or two giggles, and it’s getting better. I have a few favorited tweets now, even, which is somewhat exciting, considering I don’t really think I’m all that interesting, no matter how much I’m trying. But anyway, the whole point is, I am reading my feeds, and I am saying the occasional thing, outside of what I’m wearing and all that. And once in a while, I reply to someone else’s tweet, like you do, right?

    This particular tweet was originated by someone I do not follow, Noelle Stevenson, and was retweeted by someone I DO follow, most avidly, Tamara Brooks. She’s quite fun, lots of geeky goodness is most of her tweets, she has lots of opinions, and lots of funny comments. And, as it turns out, takes a real responsibility for the tweets she resends. Noelle tweeted a comment about some artwork from the Spider-Man artists, saying (Sic) “IM REALLY UPSET ABOUT MJ’S BOOBS HERE” in regard to this picture: Noelle’s original post, and all that followed starts here: You can follow it all, if you really want to. I’ll present my own side and summary, if you don’t want to do the work.

    Mary Jane Watson

    Tamara did a simple retweet, and I responded to that RT; IOW, to her AND Noelle, saying “What, Jealous that only in comics boobs are gravity defying? I got over comics vs reality at 11, you should too” Snarky, yes, and only half-funny, even to me. I never meant it to be some rant, or anything, I had a thought, I sent it to twitter, and that was all I needed, really.

    I was about to settle into Secrets & Lies. I usually only give a show 3 episodes stored on the DVR, then watch, and if I still like it, I keep recording, and watching. But in this case, I just kept recording for weeks, and now had 9 episodes waiting for me. This was a good thing, sort of. I already didn’t expect to like it much, being of a genre not in my favorites, and all. Revenge lasted 4 eps, for me, Scandal barely made it past 3, and How to Get Away with Murder, couldn’t stop watching fast enough. All critical and audience darlings, to be sure, but I just don’t like them.  S&L seemed of the same sort, so I could watch a few episodes, and if I didn’t like, as expected, I could free up a WHOLE lot of space for stuff I did like. And, I was in a very receptive mood, giving that show the best chance to survive my inner filter.

    But I sent the tweet. And Tamara, she took up the mantle of responding to my tweet, as though the entire thought was her own. She made several good points, don’t I allow little jokes, and how I sounded like I was using attack language. I will admit that the language I used was far too familiar, in context. She’s not my family, she’s not even used to talking with me like she used to be a couple years ago. Likely she even forgot whether I was someone she liked speaking to, altogether. (I used to keep a spreadsheet of who I follow, and who follows me back, but I don’t any longer, and I’m not going to use some webtool to figure out if she does follow me, or not. She responded to my tweet, and that’s good enough.)

    She also mentioned a joke she had made, and didn’t she get any points for it. Something about the boobs being that buoyant because of a deal she had made with Mephisto. Frankly, at the time, I never saw that tweet. As I said, I was responding to the simple retweet. The one about being upset about MJ’s boobs. Again, Noelle said that, not Tamara. But, again, Tamara spoke back and forth to me as though she made the original comment. Which is laudable, but it makes it hard, sometimes, to be really clear what you’re responding to. I did finally see her joke, and and it is funny enough. But all our back and forth about my half-joke being only a proportional response to the original half joke might have gotten quite confused. Her joke, I got, and it’s okay. Noelle’s, on the other hand, still seems like political commentary, especially in all caps, like she posted.

    For the record, the picture is unrealistic, I get that. My argument, as I attempted to present to Tamara, is that it’s a comic, therefore art, and there is artistic license in so many areas, why is there a need to dump on that one, in that way?  Superman, and a host of others can fly, for Pete’s sake, and I don’t hear a lot of rants about how that’s unreal and the artists should be taken to task for daring to depict that. Art, to me, is aspirational, not authentic. Yes, there are realistic paintings out there, but I’m not buying comic books filled with Realistic Art. I have a few, and even they take liberties, here and there. “The Book of Genesis” by R. Crumb springs to mind. It’s history as explained by a book or parables, but history nonetheless.

    And I don’t want to leave out the efforts of Noelle to argue on her own behalf. She did, in her own way. She is, evidently, a quite talented artist in her own right. She whipped up some drawings of Superman, only calling him Spider-man because ‘that’s what the “S” means, obviously’. And one with Spider-man with toaster feet, and a chip-clip on his penis. Because “it’s only comics, right” I didn’t see these tweets for a while, as I don’t follow her, and I keep forgetting to check the “notifications” tab one twitter. (I keep getting mentions for Jindai Botanical Gardens, from people visiting and raving, (Or ranting, I can’t know, it’s primarily in Japanese) about being @Jindai. So, I tend to simply ignore that, for the most part. I had the nick first, deal with it, JBG) But when I did check, I saw all her tweets, and I did read them. I didn’t dismiss, them, but I was already soul-tired from the discussion with Tamara that I didn’t want to start anything up again.

    But I’ll respond now. Noelle, you are absolutely right, (and thank you for turning off the caps lock, it really gets old, after a while) you can draw anything, any way you want to. I will fight for your right do so with every breath in my being. And all I expect from you, or anyone, is your fight to allow me not to spend a single penny on any of that art, if I don’t like it, or it doesn’t agree with what I consider pretty, useful, or story-driven, right?

    I used the word “jealous” in my original response. I’ll use it again. I’m quite jealous of your ability to quickly draw up images like that. I have no talent in that regard, and I envy your ability. And you can use that ability to do anything you want to, within legal bounds, of course. (No drawing up hundred dollar bills with the intent to spend them, for example, that would be no-no.) I just wonder how you feel about people criticizing your work, or dismissing it for trivial reasons?

    I now know the name of the artist of that picture. (If I’d had a bit more sleep, I might have been able to read the watermark on the picture.) He’s Mike DeBalfo, and I don’t know him personally, but I’m sure he worked hard, and was proud of what he did. And to have some political attack on something intended to bring joy, well, were I that artist, I’d not feel so good about that. It’s not like he drew Hitler eating babies, and had the caption of “Yum” now, did he? (Some context, that thought came to me because I just found out that Hitler was Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1938. Bet they wish they could take that one back, eh?) What I mean is, he didn’t draw an intentionally controversial piece of art, yet it drew controversy.  Doesn’t seem just, to me.

    Now, I didn’t present every argument I was thinking of, to Tamara. The entire series of exchanges were pretty linear, with some overlap. Come to think of it, Tamara MIGHT follow me, because I did make a twitter comment, not directed at anyone in particular about not ruining my good day with political trivia, and she responded to that. Then again, there are other ways she could have seen that. But, if she did follow me, I’m sure she corrected that, soon after. I know she invited me to unfollow her many times. I guess she finds it impolite to block people, or maybe she didn’t think I reached the level of needing to be blocked. Either way, I’m grateful. I do enjoy the majority of her tweets. She’s funny, wise, and very informative on a variety of topics. I DO NOT appreciate her calling some things a “Fail” simply because she disagrees with the way they are presented, but hey, some people call opinion fact, just ask Fox News.

    But I digress. What I was starting to say is that there are a lot of other arguments that I might have made, and I’ll make a few of them now.  2] Maybe MJ is one of the very rare women in the world that looks amazing in that pose, boob-wise, and if that’s the truth, why not pose that way, often, and with great aplomb? Do a google image search for “Upside down bikini girls.” Go ahead, I’ll wait. I did, and it’s amazing. There’s a whole bunch of girls that go around, in bikinis, and invert themselves, en masse, for the camera. I had no idea, before this discussion, now I do. Thanks for that. I also found this pic, from 19reallylongago

    Upside Down Pinup

    She’s not as endowed as MJ, but you can’t deny the similarity. If you have a hard time with thinking what was drawn was real, well, this is a photo. Looks pretty amazing, right?

    3] She is an actress and a model (In various continuities, I have no idea which one she is in that single panel) and it’s not uncommon for actress’s and models to have a little work done on the boobs, and that might make them a bit more gravity resistant, right? I also did a few google searches that would fit here. I’m not going to post the results, too many, too varied, and some absolutely on-topic, but would start some other controversy I don’t have the energy for.

    4] The Mephisto idea. Not a bad one, at all. Props, Tamara. Or ingestion of the regrowing formula that created The Lizard, and only standing on her head reduces the swelling, perhaps. That character, and the Spider-man franchise, has had so many ret-conns at this point, you can make up just about anything and get away with it.

    But getting upset at it? I find that a really wrong-headed, and non-proportional, response.

    And that is ALL I was meaning to say, but I was trying to be funny. One guess as to if I’m a professional comedian, and the first one doesn’t count. I’m not, and have never aspired to be. I have, however, aspired to fly, even if it’s not realistic, and I’m not getting mad at the artists who draw things I’d like to do, be, or become.

    You might think that I didn’t have to write this post, and you’re right, on the main. I just found I couldn’t sleep. Too much running through my head, and my body’s natural desire to be a vampire just jumps on any old bandwagon that will keep out of bed during darkness. (No, not LITERAL vampire, it’s just my way of saying addicted to nocturnal living.) Stupid, too, I have an early morning appointment today. And I’m sitting here writing a post.

    I guess I should also say thank you, to both Tamara and Noelle, to stirring me up to the point I DID write something. Even if neither read it, thanks. I have been not writing for a LONG time, now. Which is pretty shameful for someone that counts writing as one of his few real talents. I can’t draw, can’t play any instruments, and am so far out of practice singing, I wouldn’t inflict that on anyone, any more. But I should write.

  • Saint Valentine 2013 (A Christmas Story)

    I’ve received a few confused comments about why a Christmas story is posted with this title. It’s simple, really. I entered a writing contest in which the submission guidelines were to send in “the most romantic story you know, can think up or write.” And the submission title had to be what you see as the title of this post.  After writing it, I sent it to my good friend Yoopersmith, so that I could get some feedback, in case I didn’t win. [I didn’t] He’s the one that decided it was “Too good to hang out in my email.” and posted it here, for me. and I thank him for providing the bravery that I lacked.

    Many years ago, my girlfriend and I were out, in early November, shopping for the Christmas season. She was a delightful combination of mature sensibilities and childlike enthusiasm.  I believed I knew her better than she knew herself, as much as any man can know a woman.  And I loved that girl enough to lose her over something trivial, as it turns out.  If that makes no sense, then let me explain.

    As we walked the halls of the local mall, we passed one of the seasonal-only shops, and looking inside, we saw special toys: Christmas themed, romance themed, plush toys, and all manner of items from international cultures. On one shelf was a whole collection of Matryoshka dolls.  The Nesting dolls of Russian persuasion.  Shawna was immediately delighted by this discovery and promptly ran in to look at each and every one that they had.  She pulled each apart, and was delighted anew at each doll, smaller than the last, till she got to the tiniest one in the middle.  She did this with all 7 sets they had on the shelf.  She continued to look at them, and weigh the merits of each, trying to determine her favorite, because she knew she had to have at least one set.

    It finally came down to two sets. One with black-painted head scarves, and one with red-painted head scarves, and she had an animated debate with herself, with me, and with any passers-by handy to try and figure out which was the most deserving of her affection.

    Now, I had thought of something that she hadn’t, yet. She had forgotten her checkbook at home.  This was something she did often enough, but it was rarely of issue because we were both frugal college students, and didn’t spend more than the cash on hand, usually.  Plus, I was the boyfriend, so I was always there with my wallet.  But Shawna never thought of that as she looked longingly on the dolls, and she wouldn’t until she made her decision.  As I said, though, I knew this, and so I formed a plan.

    I sidled away from her and her debate, and pretended I wanted to look at the other displays, in what I hoped look like stereotypical-bored-boyfriend fashion. I steadily made my way to the service desk, and spoke to the lady there.  I told her, “Soon, she’ll make a decision about her favorite one, but she won’t be able to pay for it, now, and will instead come back tomorrow to get it, and will ask you to hold it for her. I would like you to, instead, hold it for me, and I’ll give you a deposit for it.  As soon as she makes her choice, please take it off the shelf, and I’ll pick it up in a couple days.”  You see, they did have a prominent sign that said no holds were possible without a deposit, and even though my Shawna was almost impossible to resist when she tried to convince someone to do her a favor, I implored on the shop girl to stand fast with the policy, which should be easy, since I had already left a deposit.

    I figured this would be the best Christmas gift I could possibly get for her. I knew she’d love it, and if I could keep the surprise from her for the next month.  This was a girl that LOVED a surprise, more than just about anything, but it was in her nature to learn all secrets around her, so pulling off a surprise was next to impossible.  But if I could carry it off, it had the potential to be the best gift, ever.  I also knew I would not be able to do this alone. I had already recruited the shop girl, and I would need help to pull it off.  But first, I had to do a bit of fibbing to her.

    Shawna finally pronounced her love for the red-scarved dolls, and even started to name each one.  Then she started looking for her checkbook, and realizing she lacked it, turned to me to ask if I had mine, and would I loan her the deposit amount.  I deferred, saying I failed to bring mine along, and lacked more than 10 dollars in cash.  I reminded her that she could come back and get it later, and reminded of her own personal maxim.  She never buys anything when she first sees it, and instead comes back later, and if it’s still there, then it is meant to be, and if it is not, then it was not, and to accept the fate, either way.  She looked frustrated, but admitted that it was her policy, and would live by it. With a longing look at her chosen favorite, we left the shop and went about the rest of our outing. Truthfully, it didn’t last much longer, a stop at Orange Julius and a trip home. Both of us had homework to do, as it was the middle of the week.

    As I dropped her off at her home, I pulled her grandmother aside to tell her of my plan.  Shawna lived with her Grandmother, for various reasons, and she was a strict lady, and didn’t entirely approve of me.  I was 8 years older than Shawna, having served in the military before going to college, and I believed more in personal freedom, whereas Patty was more on the strict do-as-you’re-told school of thought.  I thought that adding Patty to the gift conspiracy might help us bridge that difficulty, and even if it didn’t, if it was for Shawna, Patty would help.  Then I headed home, myself.

    As soon as I got home, I started firming up the plans.  I thought I had at least a day to make things happen, but I wanted to hurry and put things in place.  I called the Shop to make sure the doll had been pulled, and it had been, I told them I’d be by to pick it up in two days.  I told my mother, who I lived with, the plan as well.  She was notoriously bad at keeping a secret if she stumbled onto it, but wonderful at keeping one if told from the start, so it was just safer to include her.  I also called Shawna’s mother, who was in her life, and visited often with Shawna’s little brother. And she told the brother. He was only 7, but wily in secrets, as it turns out.

    The first bout of bad news came mere hours after I returned home.  I received a call from Patty, who had never called me previously, “Rick, I can’t speak long, Shawna is still outside, but will be in, soon..  She couldn’t wait till tomorrow, and made me drive her to the mall.  When she saw her favorite gone, she lost it, and hasn’t stopped crying since, except to curse you for convincing her to wait. I have to go.” And hung up. Not even a minute later, Shawna called me, and told me how the red-scarved doll was gone.  How she felt betrayed by me, how I’d ruined things, and how mad she was.  She should have never listened to me, and how she doesn’t think she can ever trust what I have to say again. I didn’t ask about the Black-scarved one.  I knew that though she had a difficult time choosing between them, as soon as she made her choice, it was all or nothing.  The second-best was just that, and she never settled for second. Besides, if she DID go after the second choice, my gift would be meaningless.

    It was a tough conversation.  I very nearly broke down and told her right then, that she hadn’t lost it after all. But two things kept me from spilling. First, I’m stubborn, and once I set my mind to something, I don’t back down.  But even more importantly, I couldn’t figure out how to tell her and not confirm that I had been lying the whole time.  I seemed like a losing proposition, no matter what I did.  So I listened to, and accepted, all the recriminations, accusations, and vilifications coming from the woman I loved, for quite a bit longer than you might expect.  She came very close to breaking up with me, over the phone, because of this, and still ended the conversation with, “I’ll never trust you, ever again.” Man, did that hurt. But I stuck it out, and was grateful to have made it through my first Hurricane Shawna.

    It had been daylight still, when she called, but as I hung up the phone, spent emotionally, it was long after dark.  I spent the night restlessly trying to sleep. The next few days and weeks were spent alternately enjoying myself with, and hating, the present. There was finding the right wrapping paper, and the materials to wrap it in.  I had decided to make a nesting doll of the wrappings, as well.  Sort of an inside joke, or meta gift.  I found some green colored bubble wrap to put around the doll, and a beautiful blue Lucite box with a fitted lid, that the doll, with bubble wrap, could fit inside.  Then I wrapped that in butcher paper, and placed that inside a shoe box from a ballet supply company (Shawna was a Ballet teacher), and that inside another box, and filled the empty space with lots of foam peanuts, which I found a supply of in many colors.  Then I wrapped it as beautifully as I could and tied my own bow, using instructions I got from a book in the library. (This was in the early days of the internet, and long before YouTube, so books were still the primary resource to most.)  Then I took it over to place under the tree as Shawna’s house.

    On the other hand was my girlfriend’s continuing smoldering resentment of my perceived betrayal.  Small things would cause arguments now, and I was as unhappy as I’d ever been.  I got regular updates from Patty about how Shawna still spoke badly about me to her. (I think a little joyfully, Patty would love having Shawna back to herself, alone, I thought.)  Shawn’s little brother would gleefully inform me that he had not broken, things were still secret, completely unaware of the clouds this present were causing.  (I wished I were as innocent as he was, all the time, then.)  Shawna’s mother would give me sympathetic nods on occasion, seeming to say, “I know what it’s like, living with her anger. Good luck.” It was just rough.

    Christmas came, and I remember waking up that morning thinking this stubborn streak of mine was probably going to kill me someday, perhaps in just a few hours.  What if she didn’t get that I did it for love, that I knew she loves surprises more than just about anything, and that the only reason I’d ever lie to her was to make the surprise possible.  If she just focused on the lies, I was in for a very bad day.  If she just felt betrayed, and that she had been put through the emotional wringer for just a doll, of all things, she might never forgive me. I didn’t chicken out, though.  I drove over to her house, sat through the brunch, and then sat in my spot, across the room from Shawna, as we’d done, a lot, lately.  Little bro was playing Santa, and handed out the gifts, loudly announcing who they were from as he handed them to the recipient.

    He knew which was mine, and saved it for last.  In my mind, I was thinking he was just being vicious, as the wait was killing me, but in retrospect, I know it was just he wanted the fun factor at its highest when she opened it.  The kid had an innate sense of suspense.

    Shawna politely commented on the pretty wrapping job, even saved the ribbon to the side, for one of her scrap books, I think.  Then she wondered why I’d get her a toaster oven, before opening that and finding the next box.  Then she seemed mildly intrigued that I got her new ballet slippers, but on opening that, found the blue Lucite container. She marveled at how pretty it was and that she could use it for any number of knickknacks.  Then she noticed there was something darker inside that box, and opening that, saw the green bubble wrap around something distinctly roundish. And her eyes started getting quite large, and her breath came in very short, sharp bursts, and she ripped that bubble wrap off the doll so fast, it could hardly be believed.  And there was a single gasp from her, and suddenly, from 8 feet away, she vaulted into my arms, and hugged me so hard my ribs creaked. The room gave a collective sigh as all the tension just melted away, and there was open weeping from all the adults in the room as all was forgiven, in that instant. Best, scariest, Christmas ever.