A BlogSnax© post
I bought some cookies this week. The expiration date on the side said…
Best eaten by 10/27
Yeah, right. It would have been safe if it had said…
Best eaten by 10:27
…cuz they were gone by then.
Mediocre Super Powers
Super heroes continue to be all the rage as they have been for decades. There’s a reason for their longevity. We want to live vicariously through those extraordinary folks. Who wouldn’t want to have super powers? Of course, everyone has what we consider “super powers”, as in
My super power is kindness.
My super power is encouragement.
My super power is ADHD.
Those are awesome and we should acknowledge, use, and celebrate such gifts, but, let’s be honest. None of them is a super super power like, say, flying or invisibility.
Somewhere between those crucial natural super powers (generosity, persistence, etc.) and the magical Big Ones (invulnerability, X-ray vision, and the like) are slightly mystical mediocre super powers. They’re as rare as the major powers—I’ve never encountered them in real life—but I’ve always wished I had one or more of them. And I keep coming up with more ideas. Here are a few I’ve yearned for:
- If I could go out of focus for brief times, I could wreak havoc on people’s photographs, eyeglasses, and sanity. That would be awesome.
- Life would be so much easier if I had the power to read QR codes directly, no phone, no internet. What a time and hassle saver.
- The ability to put on and/or remove undergarments without removing outer clothes. You’d be surprised how often this would come in handy.
- The power to clap lights on and off without a Clapper. Admit it, you wish you could do this.
- See with my eyes closed. (This might include seeing through blindfolds and hands but not just anything; that would be too super.) Imagine how much fun you could have messing with people’s minds! And your career as a magician would be a fait accompli.
- Able to open even the tightest jars. To some people (including my wife) I’d be a hero second only to the real supers.
- I want to be able to shrink my legs on demand so I could sit comfortably in coach or any tight spot.
- It would be great to be able to close my ears and my nose. We can close our eyes, why not those other orifices? Frankly, those skills would be more useful.
- I’ve always wished I could grow cobwebs at will. Imagine the reaction of a waiter at a restaurant when you’ve spent too long waiting for your meal or check. He comes back and you’re cloaked in a thick shroud of them. Think they’d get the point? Then there are medical waiting rooms, the RMV, and so many other places I’ve always wanted to do this.
I’m sure you could think of more. Sure, it would be great to have super strength or the ability to throw balls of flame but they’d probably cause more grief than they’re worth. (Just ask the Incredibles!) Anyway, it’s good to start small and work your way up. Let me know how it turns out for you.
Obscure bumper stickers
I like finding obscure references on bumper stickers. The common ones bore me. “Coexist”, “I ♥ my schnauzer”, “Vote for Some Schmuck”, yeah, yeah, we’ve heard it all before. No, I prefer something that takes some thought, off the grid, beyond the pale, outside the box. For example, not long ago I saw one with only the words “Jethro Tull”. Not many people in their younger years (say, 60 or less) would get that. The fact that I did made me feel kind of special, as if I were “in the know”. Here are a couple more. Can you identify the sources?
More prophecy…
A few of my previous posts described the prophetic gifts of Maya Angelou, Stevie Wonder, and, of all people, Mike Judge. Here are a few more prophecies on the same theme…
Octavia Butler, a renowned writer of speculative fiction, wrote…
Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.
To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies.
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.
Her words have proven to be painfully accurate over time but never more so than in our current “leader”. She pretty much ticked every item on the list of his character traits. And she did it nearly thirty years ago. Today we’re paying the price for not heeding her warning.
The following quote has been wrongly attributed to Sinclair Lewis, but its origins are unknown. According to Quote Investigator, it appears to be an amalgam of quotes from a variety of sources. Regardless, it has turned out to be 100% true:
When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.
While the exact quote is not from Lewis, its intent and power are expressed in great detail in his brilliantly prophetic book, “It Can’t Happen Here”. That novel is highly recommended.
Finally, there’s the utmost expression of such prophecy, by none other than the now trendy Alexander Hamilton. In a letter to George Washington dated August 18, 1792, Hamilton stated,
When a man unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits—despotic in his ordinary demeanour—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may “ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”
Except for the clauses about talents and military habits, neither of which the object of this post possesses, Mr. Hamilton has captured precisely what we’re suffering through as well as its cause. He saw it coming over 200 years before it happened yet most of us are missing it even as we’re in the midst of that whirlwind. No wonder he got a musical.
Throwback Thursday!
Remember COVID? It was a big deal until we all wisely followed the sage advice of a madman and injected ourselves with Clorox.
I don’t mean to make light of such a serious problem; I lost one person important to me to the affliction. But we’ve reached the point when, as I heard one NY doctor correctly predict would happen five years later, it’s just a bad cold. Maybe it’s okay to look back and have some fun with photos from that era. Here are three I’ve had in the files since then.
This one I saw at a farm stand. Good practical advice.
Here’s a warning from a seafood restaurant. I wouldn’t want to get on this guy’s bad side!
Finally, one from a diner. I stood on it but the darn thing kept swiveling and I fell off. I can’t win!
De-Googling
This will probably get me in trouble but I’ll admit it: I don’t like Google. Yes, I use Gmail because, to paraphrase those bumper stickers on Teslas, I started using it before I knew they were evil. I have an Android phone cuz it’s either Google or Apple. Pick your poison. But I don’t search with Google. I use Qwant or DuckDuckGo. Besides believing Google is a toxic company, it does stuff that’s either really scary or really stupid. Two cases in point.
- Google Maps once sent me down a dead-end street then told me to turn around and go back to the main road I’d been traveling on before turning. Why? Hard to say, but there was a house for sale at the end of that dead end. Coincidence? I think not. Either the homeowner worked for Google and tweaked the search in his favor or the realtor paid Google to randomly send people down that road.
- The only things I search for in Google are phone numbers. When I get a call from a number I don’t know, I don’t answer it, of course, but I also look it up to see if it’s legit or, more likely, spam. Quite often, Google will give me a list of entries, some of which display the following message:
Can anyone explain why I’d want to do a search without the only item I was searching for? No, cuz there is no valid explanation. What I usually get are listings of businesses who paid Google to show them when there are few other results. I guess this is what’s known as “search engine optimization”.
Blah!
Battling Bumper Stickers
I’m very interested in cognitive dissonance. It’s the other pandemic we’re in the midst of. I’ve written about it in my blog on several occasions. The subject is far from dead. Here are two egregious examples:
In the past few weeks, I saw two cars bearing bumper stickers that sent completely opposite messages… on the same car! Each car was festooned with about a dozen stickers endorsing the MAGA cult as well as its nefarious leader. But one also had a sticker proclaiming:
More Love, Less Hate
What?!? Huh?!? The patron saint of hate was promoted all over this car. Who’s got room for love? What gives? The other car I saw, in addition to the aforementioned creepy MAGA stickers, also wore one that said:
I ❤ The Constitution
That one gave me intellectual whiplash. No one has ever abused and run roughshod over said document than the scofflaw the other stickers endorsed. He makes Richard Nixon look like the proverbial boy scout.
I wish I’d had the presence of mind to take photos of those vehicles because I’m having a problem trusting my memory about such inanity. I have just one reaction.
Wow.
Duplicate opposites
A BlogSnax© post
As near as I can tell, the words “near” and “far” are opposites. Yet, as far as I can tell, the phrases “as near as I can tell” and “as far as I can tell” mean the exact same thing.
These are the things that keep me up nights.
Well, that and other stuff.
Book quote
A BlogSnax© post
Just finished reading a new book by my favorite writer. As is often the case reading his words, I was (virtually, not literally) stopped in my tracks by a sentence so pregnant with truth, I had to stop to ponder its significance. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. The book is written in the first person by an old man who frequently reflects on his life. At one point, he writes:
All the people whom I had hoped to impress when I was young are dead.
Wow.
A coupla photos during a busy week
A BlogSnax© post
Things are tight this week with two books in the works and a cycling fundraiser for Partners in Health coming in a few days. If you’d like to contribute, here’s the link to my donation page. Meanwhile, here are a couple of photos for your enjoyment… or something.
Scribbling in the Sand 