I Was That Close To 500 Posts

I know I'm going to get there, 500 posts. I thought I was there. I was, virtually.

I had 499 posts. Then I got to thinking, sometimes Blogger screws up and you get unnecessary "draft" posts, an earlier or later version of something else you wrote, that wasn't posted yet the master copy was.

So, curiosity killed the cat, they say. I decided to look, hoping against hope there wouldn't be any "draft" posts. Because, once again, I was at 499. One more would be 500, 500 years of posting, five centuries of blog entries, enough posts to put me back to the time of Christopher Columbus!

It turned out there was like six of these stinking "draft" posts, dropping me to 493, a significant downfall.

Death to tyrants. If you meet the tyrant on the road, kill him!

The Gallery Of The Absurd

This is a blog that I visit frequently -- The Gallery of the Absurd.

It's a very funny site, in which the person (I always say "guy") -- in which the guy posts graphics, pictures of the various absurdities you find in advertisements, on signs, etc.

One of my "favorite" features, that is often "featured" there is the use of "unnecessary" quotation marks. Like this sign: Through this door pass the "very best" transportation security officers. Quote unquote, someone thinks they're the "very best," or someone's simply being ironic, wink wink. "Very best," yah, sure.

Another recurring feature has to do with clowns, funny, ridiculous, or even terrifying images of clowns. I personally don't have a problem with clowns. But of course I wouldn't allow one to be alone with my children. Who would? A recent one is one that the guy describes as "a turd with a cowboy hat." LOL! I love that.

It's worth checking out ... frequently.

This Is An Old Blog

That's one way to look at it, this is an old blog. I have over 400 posts. Pretty old!

Another way would be, maybe it was just created yesterday. And the 400 posts were already there just to test your faith. If you believe in the young blog theory.

But another way to look at it is this: It's old, yes, but not as old as it's likely to get. By the time another 50 years passes, and I'm still going strong, with 30,000 some posts by then, we'll all look back and say, 400? -- that wasn't so old.

If I last another 50 years, more power to me! The clock starts .... NOW!

Ideas For Tomorrow

I notice that if you want to do a different idea everyday, some kind of theme, that days pass by very quickly, and you're always pressed for what it's going to be.

I'm thinking of cartoonists, who reportedly work two months in advance or more. They have that kind of everyday schedule to keep up. Maybe they can come up with a dozen strips a day or a dozen panels. I don't know.

If you do anything everyday -- except going to the bathroom and eating -- it's a demand on your time. Because that time rolls around very quickly.

I don't have any great ideas for tomorrow. I'm rooting around in my mind for one, but one hasn't come. I'm thinking I'll get to bed and something will surely ferment in my mind overnight.

I always know it (or semi-know it) when it comes to mind, so all I have to do (hopefully) is sleep, then wake up, and Voila, there it will be!

The Secrets of Inner Beauty

What do I know about the secrets of inner beauty?

I think I know something about them. And whatever it is that I know, that I will delve into tomorrow on Grandma Slump. I'm getting strangely into a thematic approach.

I'm always a little freaked out by the word "delve." It's not a normal word, is it? I always picture sleazy guys saying it, "We're going to delve into the important lessons of life. Amen?"

And the word "glean" has to go with it. "Once we delve into the important lessons of life, Amen? Then we'll be able to glean from those lessons the things we need to know today."

Could someone shout hallelujah?

Vague Tweets

Someone at Twitter cited one of my tweets as a "vague tweet." I've only been on there three or four days, so I guess it's an honor -- being virtually followerless as I am -- for this Vague Tweets guy to cite one of mine as vague.

It was:

You might call me a group dynamologist and a grange dancologist. With an interest in sexual tension. And farmers' daughters.

I'd love to explain about this. I'm doing Twitter with my Grandma Slump persona. As vaguely defined as that persona is. I go through days wondering about it occasionally. The fact that no one else is wondering makes it my own concern.

Recently, from April to the end of July, I was "on hiatus," during which I went on and on about that. Now I'm casting about for another theme that will be easy enough to write about on a daily basis while bringing in some weird bits of humor. I try to take how I normally think and give it about five twists. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes not. But I keep tweaking it, since my funnier ideas come after I've hit the post button.

My big idea for the foreseeable future is a toughie. But I'm going to make it easier by not being entirely consistent. I don't really know how to do fiction in any kind of orderly way. So it's going to be a mixture of teaching about group dynamics and a secret, nefarious society that has their roots in the local grange. I'm picturing these characters as the ordinary folks who go to the grange, but they're very far gone as far as looking down their noses at other people and wanting to maintain strict group coherence.

Why and how all this is meant to exist in an actual human setting is probably going to be my downfall. But maybe it's a magical place like Brigadoon, only the very moral characters of this society are also rotten and evil to the core. I'd love to have easily-accessible farmers' daughters, but I've also defined most of them as informants and not really that interested in relations with outside entities. But there may be one or two. This is probably what will happen. I will find one or two who have moral issues with immorality and decide to be immoral in other ways. But how am I going to discern their intentions? That's a direction to go for sure.

On the other hand, I'm over 50 and the typical farmer's daughter who wears those hot farmer's daughter shorts we all love is going to be looking for someone younger. It could be, though, that with the high rate of informants among their possible beaus that they don't know where to turn. (I need to keep it clean, though, because I don't do blue material.)

Now, the grange people are very moral. But they also use obviously immoral means to root out those who have come among them who are not sincere and concerned with group coherence as they demand it should be. These means include orgies and all kinds of other apparent looseness. It's all done for their own moral ends, which would be immoral to the rest of us.

Where's the group dynamics angle come from? I'm interested in group dynamics even though I don't have any formal training in the subject. But still, I figure my theories and conclusions are just as good as anyone's. Just because I'm not parroting the normal academic line doesn't mean my conclusions are inferior. I feel like I need to take academic inbreeding to task anyway. They're always looking down their nose at us laymen, who could probably kick their flabby butts if it came to fisticuffs. In this case, I would aver, might makes right.

We were out to lunch the other day and I wrote the "Vague Tweet" while sitting at the table in a fancy restaurant. It gave me a thrill, like a bolt of electricity that started in one heel and went up to my knee, then from my knee to my [that area]. Then from [that area] up to the chest and so forth. Then it was repeated in the other leg. To make a long story short, I ended up with my shirt unbuttoned and was daubing my sweaty chest with the fancy cloth napkin soaked in my iced tea. [I'm doing my persona again, fell into it.]

But I want to give credit where credit is due. I couldn't think of the word that would become "dynamologist." I was asking, "What would be the word, a fake word, for someone who studies group dynamics?" Because I was thinking "dynamicist," which didn't look right. [I love all this self-referential BS, of which every word is true.] The woman I was with -- yes, I was with a woman -- suggested "dynamologist" and I said "That's perfect." Sending off my tweet, we both soaked our sweaty chests and sent for refills.

Now, of course I know that when the "Vague Tweets" guy or gal (but waiters call both men and women "guys," so I guess I can too) saw my tweet, he or she no doubt thought it was just some random crap that meant nothing. But it's not that vague if you know the back story! One thing about it, though, I don't believe I had the evil grangers in mind quite yet. Just the farmers' daughters.

My Dog

My dog got to go to the park (different ones) two times today. That's a great day.

I may not be doing a lot right in life but at least I'm treating my dog well. And that ought to be scoring me some points, right?

She looks at me with devotion. And I look back at her with devotion. I'd like to know what she's thinking. Maybe, "Alpha Dog nice guy." Which is true, I am pretty nice.

All the petting, cleaning up after, saying "Good girl," etc. People see me coming and, if they knew about how great I was with this dog, they'd surely be going, "There's that guy who's so great with his dog."

And if they knew about this blog, they'd be saying, "Let's read his blog today and see what he said about us." And his dog.

Your Undercover Blogger

Be on the lookout for me around town, looking to report on the little incidences of life I see you engaged in.

You won't recognize me, really. My disguise is no disguise. Maybe I'm right in front of you in line, or behind you. You don't know.

I will tell what I hear, what I observe. And if you come across it online, perhaps at random, or perhaps directly by super cosmic guidance, you will wonder, Could this be about me? Then what will you wonder? Who was it? Could I ask to see the surveillance tape?

I don't have a notebook. I am not flashing a press pass. I'm just there, hidden in the best way, right in plain sight. But you won't grab me by the collar because you'll never know it's me.

The Polyphonic Spree

Have you ever heard the song, "Section 10 (A Long Day)" by The Polyphonic Spree?

I had never heard it before, and was listening to the album while writing a blog post. Since I'm basically concentrating on writing that -- the article "I'm Withholding Judgment," on John Edwards having or maybe not having a love child -- I'm not paying strict attention to this track playing in my earbuds.

It's fine as background, then I start to notice that it's going on for a while, and that it's a lot of prolonged, mechanical sounding tones played without a lot of variance and melody. So I look at the CD cover and it's timed at 36:30! That's interesting.

There's like 26 or 29 people in this group, but I don't think they all had a part in this track.

It doesn't sound like a track for listening to if you're just listening to songs. But if you're doing something else, it's kind of a nice! I heard the whole thing, which might not happen that often.

Don't falme me pleas

That's funny, a pathetic little nothing of a diary, by Joan Evan.

But this part makes it worthwhile, a true LOL moment:

"Don't falme me pleas"

Uncommon Sense

Blog on politics, pointing out the various absurdities that is the John McCain campaign. Such as kicking out the woman with the "McCain=Bush" sign when presumably Bush is someone McCain likes and wants to be more like.

Uncommon Sense.

Animist for Spare Change

Just a blog to note. "Animist for Spare Change."

It looks like a good effort to me. "The unlikeliest poet from Ulan Bator also attempting inconsistencies - prose, thoughts, absurd, and whatever." By Ramakrishnan Parthasarathy.

Religious Liberal

A religious liberal blog, good one.

http://religiousliberal.blogspot.com/

Classic Rock Society

Link to a music site with lots of information, concerning classic rock recordings, groups, news. In the UK. Points to various legal downloads or links for listening to tracks posted by the groups themselves.

http://theclassicrocksociety.blogspot.com/

Old Time Radio

Here's a place that looks like it links to lots of archives of Old Time Radio shows, mp3s of episodes of shows from way back, '30s, '40s, '50s.

Calf Killer Old Time Radio.

I have quite a few OTR shows, burnt on discs some years ago. I never listen to them, but I know they'd be good. I tend to drift. Some are not great quality, but some are very clear. There are thousands of episodes out there of detective stories, mystery stories, horror stories, and comedies that you may never have dreamt existed.

One of my favorites, back when I was listening to them, was a show called "Diary of Fate." And, hey, sure enough, there's a link off to a directory of this show's episodes. There's only 25-some episodes, identified by the name of the main character of that episode.

The premise of "Diary of Fate" is that Fate (that inexorable force behind everything) is personified, and reviewing a big book that has the life stories of various individuals. He has a slightly sinister, satisfied-about-it voice when he does these reviews. Each review is an episode of someone who did something terribly wrong. Perhaps it could've been avoided, perhaps they might not have gotten caught, "but for a little thing." Fate says that a lot, "It was a little thing." Such as a happenstance visit, a red light at an inopportune moment, a phone call that delays you, etc. And in the episodes it's these "little things" that Fate uses to seal their fate!

A common premise would be trying to get rich by killing someone in the way. But the little things pile up and next thing you know...their life's down the drain! It's a good show.

Calf Killer has lots of links, and some of these shows I recognize as ones I have. The "Adventures By Morse" link doesn't go anywhere live, and I only tested a couple links.

As far as I know, they're public domain, either that or they're so forgotten that no one cares.

Memory and Rhetoric

Flip that around, Rhetoric and Memory!

I don't know that I can sum up this blog adequately. It is scholarly, concerned with bibliographies, quotes, papers, and projects involving rhetoric, memory, and education, with an apparent interest in African America, Latino, women's, and LGTB studies.

Forgive me if I'm wrong!

True Hauntings of America

If you like ghost stories and haunted places, here's a blog worth checking out: Haunts of America.

They've got some kind of flash thing going on there, so it won't allow my computer to copy anything. But the stories look interesting and well-researched.

I saw one on a haunting at a reformatory in Ohio. I was trying to clip a piece, but couldn't do it. It spoke of negative energy in the chapel. Maybe the negative energy has affected the site.

Monasticism.Blogspot

Blog. The musings of Fr. Peter-Michael Preble.

Pastor of St. Michael's Orthodox Church of the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese.

Posts on religion, religious issues, politics, and quite a few posts in his archive.

The First Person to Jump Off the Brooklyn Bridge

The first person to jump from the Brooklyn Bridge was Robert Odlum, a swimming teacher from Washington, at 5:45 PM, May 19th, 1885. Here's the rest, a post at Reflections From the End of the Night.

Byzigenous Buddhapalian

Blog to check out.

Miscellaneous spiritual, aesthetic, cultural, and political explorations by a world citizen.

Would appear to have a Democratic point of view, anti-McCain point of view, meaning intelligent.

Lots of interesting things, lots of links to other blogs.

My only negative is it has more pictures of buildings than I want to see. So probably some architectural interests as well.