General

To do or not to do

person marking check on opened book
Check ALL THE OPTIONS. Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

It’s that time of year when people are doing things because, for some reason, organizations have chosen to stuff these events into the last few months of the year.

Should I participate these things? Let’s have a look-see:

Halloween

I don’t really do Halloween, other than maybe enjoying some of the decorations people put up in their yards around the neighbourhood. That’s enough for me. That, and watching the Peanuts Halloween special. Also, Halloween is technically just one day, even if candy shows up on store shelves three months before October 31st, so it’s pretty easy to just say I’m not taking part. Maybe some alternate universe version of me dresses up as a vampire and goes out to costume parties to all hours of the night. I’m happy for that version of me, with his suave goatee and all, but it’s just not this universe’s version of me.

Inktober

I used Inktober a few years back to help rekindle my interest in drawing. It worked! I have not drawn much over the summer, for various reasons and thought about doing Inktober again (using my own rules, of course, because I’m a rebel). But today is October 10 and that means 10 of 31 prompts have already come and gone. Yes, I could just wave them off and start with #11 tomorrow, but it would bug me that I was missing a bunch, and I’d try to catch up, and maybe it wouldn’t go well? I don’t know. I think I’ll mull this for one more night before deciding.

National Novel Writing Month

This is coming up in November, as it always does.

I was thinking about whom the ideal participant in NaNoWriMo is and this is what I came up with:

  1. New writers looking to establish a writing habit. To win, you need to write 50,000 words over 30 days, or about 1,667 word per day. It’s demanding and forces you to make time to write, and 30 days is enough time to build a habit.
  2. More seasoned writers who have lost their mojo. For basically the same reason as new writers, a seasoned writer might find that NaNoWriMo gets the wheels turning again, allowing them to return to stalled projects or start fresh on something new and shiny.
  3. Masochists who don’t mind spending 30 days writing what will likely be a garbage novel that will require a lot more than 30 days to fix.

I used to be #1, could make an argument for being an unpublished version of #21Techincally I got published in a Moose Lodge newsletter when I was 12 years old, and mostly feel like I was secretly #3 all along. I’m not sure if I want to invest the time writing to end up with something that isn’t very good. Writing under the pressure of NaNoWriMo certainly gets you lots of words, but I feel trying to complete a novel in that 30 days leads to a lot of shortcuts, sloppy writing and what you’re really doing is trading the satisfaction of completing a specific goal–a 50,000 word novel in 30 days–for the long slog of fixing that same novel and turning it into something readable, effort that may have been better spent just working on a novel without the pressure cooker 30-day deadline.

I mean, if you feel you need the deadline just to get something happening (#1 or #2), I think it’s valid, but you need to be prepared for a lot more work afterwards to turn that dashed-off novel into something good. Because why would you write a novel, otherwise?

Based on the above, I think the odds of me taking part in National Novel Writing Month 2023 are pretty darned slim.

In conclusion

I’ll probably just stick to my own list of tasks, which is chock-full of stuff that I shouldn’t let myself be distracted from, anyway.

October cat

Yes, when all else fails, it’s time for cats. Fortunately, the internet is filled with them.

The pleasant fall weather is looking to pause for a few days beginning tomorrow. Pausing is still better than six months of The Rains, though.

The Culling continues: Amazon edition

After years of having Amazon Prime, I finally cancelled it today. The process was not terribly difficult, but I did have to wade through several “Please don’t go, look at all the stuff you get!” pages to get to the point where I could actually cancel. I’m afraid their plaintive pitch persuaded me not! I did elect to let my current membership expire on renewal, rather than get prorated the few bucks back by cancelling right this moment in a fit of pique.

Here’s why I’m cancelling, in case other Canadians are considering (American Prime is a bit different, so I wouldn’t really compare the two):

  • Ordering far less often from Amazon
    • Harder to find what I want
    • To the point above, there is a vast sea of knock-offs and junk on amazon.ca now
    • Pricing is often just so-so
    • More stuff not covered by Prime shipping
    • That 2-day shipping? lol, nope! (Well, sometimes, but increasingly rare)
    • 11% off is not a deal, even if you say it is!
    • Everyone else is copying Prime Days now, often with better pricing
  • I can count the number of things I’ve watched on Prime Video on one hand. One was the execrable Moonfall, but that one’s more on me than Amazon, to be fair.
    • The upcoming move to charge more for “ad-free” Prime Video didn’t exactly make my socks roll up and down in delight, either
  • I never listen to Amazon Music, especially after the basic version was turned into a giant shuffle mode. If I want to listen to the radio, I can do that now, for free.
  • Never read anything through Prime Reading. My Kindle still doesn’t know that left-handed people exist, and Amazon is making token efforts at best to control the flood of AI-generated garbage sluicing into the Kindle store.
  • Took advantage of the Twitch freebies maybe twice? I don’t remember what I got.
  • The more information that comes out on how Amazon does business, the more comfortable I am in not sending money to an apparently Very Evil Empire

And that’s it! I look forward to buying local more often! Sort of.

September 2023 was a month

I’m not sure how I’d summarize this September. Unlike last September, which was a long continuation of very hot and humid weather, this September saw enough precipitation that by the end of the month the fire danger rating dropped back to low. Fall arrived with Very Fall weather and two day into the new season, we had our first official fall storm, with weather advisories and everything.

September was never especially hot, though we had nice days. I gained half a pound, but at least 300 grams was sexy leg muscle, I’m pretty sure.

So, a mixed bag.

I’m expecting snow by Halloween.

It’s been a day

Good:

  • My first mini-run. Fastest 1K to date! Yay!
  • Taco dinner was yummy

Bad:

  • Internet connection went down for the second time in a week (almost to the exact hour, hmm!)
  • Power went out for about 15 minutes (this almost never happens here)
  • I was baking bread when the power went out
  • Hot water is now out (probably due to the boiler shutting off and no one restarting it)
  • My weight jumped up 1.2 pounds overnight, putting me up for the month with two days to go. I try to convince myself it’s just dense, sexy leg muscle, but I’m not sure. EDIT: I checked, and my water weight increased, as did my skeletal muscle mass. The former is kind of neutral, but can explain weight gain, the second is actually good. So maybe a very slight increase in sexy leg muscle.
  • I had an interrupted, not great sleep
  • The above left me crankier than I’ve been in a good while. Or a bad while.

Okay:

  • The bread survived, it’s just a bit lumpy, but in a lovable way
  • The dishwasher works, because it makes its own hot water. It’s smart!
  • I already had a shower post-run when hot water was still a thing
  • I’ll probably have weird dreams about some or all of the above tonight

Should we talk about the weather?

Today is the second day of Fall 2023. Tomorrow, as logic dictates, is the third.

We have a “special weather statement” for the third day:

I’m supposed to be running tomorrow. On the plus side, I won’t need to worry about getting a sunburn. On the negative side, getting clubbed by a laden tree branch would probably hurt a fair bit. I guess I’ll see how things look in the morning!

It’s the first day of fall, 2023 edition

Unlike the start of last fall, which turned out to really be the beginning of a one-month extension of a hot and humid summer, Fall 2023 has started out gray, with threats of showers in the afternoon, and a high temperature in the teens (17C).

Which is to say: Boo. I was prepared for a few more weeks of sun. I am not prepared for The Rains. Admittedly, lousy weather may help me be more productive at my various creative pursuits, though, because I won’t want to go outside.

Also, it’s time to revisit my evergreen post on the three seasons of fall.

Dreaming of giant cookies, and other things

I’m in a large, open food court or cafeteria. Although it’s a big place, it isn’t busy. I am going to order something to eat. As I walk by a glass display case holding food items, I notice an array of cookies that are the size of dinner plates. I am tempted, but will not order these, as I’m trying to lose weight, even in my dreams.

I get to the counter to order. A few moments later, another guy moves up behind me, then several others also join in. A girl approaches to take my order–except she ignores me and starts talking to the guy behind me. I stand there with a pretty convincing, “Whaaa?” look on my face before shrugging and moving on to another part of this giant cafeteria food place.

Here things get fuzzy, alas. All I can recall now is that I went to another food outlet of some type, and also failed to get food there for some reason, so I left the place, empty-handed and empty-stomached.

Another dream occurred sometime later: I am talking to two young women who are holding up some kind of line against a background of mountains in the distance. They want to know if the line is straight. Thinking about this now, it makes no sense at all, but in the dream it did, and I assured them the line was pretty straight. They seemed satisfied. I remember the mountains looked nice, and it must have been summer, because the sky was blue, and the peaks had no snow on them.

It felt like I was travelling.

I moved on, to a kind of outdoor shop that was filled with maps and outdoor gear and such. It was being remodelled, and the fragrant smell of fresh-cut cedar hung heavy in the air. It looked like about half the place had been remodelled using this raw, rough-hewn wood. I didn’t care, because in this dream, I just had to use the bathroom.

I got to the bathroom and again, everything was made from this rough-cut, fresh cedar. It was the best-smelling bathroom ever. The sink functioned in a fashion, but all the places where you could relieve yourself were covered in plastic and out of service. I had to leave because I couldn’t go. /zen

I later had a dream in which I was back working temporarily at my last job, something I would never do in a million billion years unless you, like, quadrupled my pay.

So the themes of this dreamfest appeared to be:

  • Not getting what I wanted
  • Getting things I did not want
  • Being somewhat helpful for odd purposes

Random thoughts from the internet, entry #435

My numbering might be off a little.

This comment is presented without context, because it could apply to a lot of people. If you absolutely must know who it references, click the spoiler below.

The quote:

When are we going to stop making stupid people famous for being both stupid and loud?

It’s not a great quote, by any means–some will bristle at using the word “stupid” to describe a person, for example, but I think what it conveys is an essential (and unfortunate) part of internet and social media culture, which is:

  • If you act stupid (substitute word of your choice here), you will generally be ignored
  • But if you act stupid and loud, people will pay attention to you, earning you “fame” of a variety
  • The internet allows anyone to be both stupid and loud
  • ???
  • Profit! The world becomes worse, by increments (at least to start)

In the end, this is basically about trolls knowing how to be effective, and the age-old advice for handling the trolls remains the same: Ignore them. When they are loud, it makes it harder to do so (think of a dog barking outside your window) but it can be done, and when the trolls don’t get any response, they eventually move on. Probably to a new troll, but eventually they may fall into the obscurity they deserve. Giving them attention, even when it’s calling them out for being “stupid” gives them the oxygen they need to continue.

None of this is new or revelatory. But just today I wanted to put it down in writing again. Life is about the choices you make, even when the choices are thrust upon you. We can all choose not to engage with the stupid and loud. And we should!

And now, a cat:

Identity of the stupid and loud person
Marjorie Taylor Greene

It’s the end of the decade as I know it (and I feel fine)

Today is my birthday. As is tradition, I will not be doing anything noteworthy to celebrate. This blog post is pretty much it!

This particular birthday is a milestone in a couple of ways, one of them in a reflective sense, the other a little more morbid1Which I will address as a footnote: I have officially outlived my dad, who died at the age of 58.

I’m turning 59, which means this is the last year I will fit into that 50-59 bracket. Next year, I will officially be Old. You know how surveys always divide age groups up? I am basically at the tail end of the second-to-last group now, after that, I’ll be lumped into that amorphous group of people that spans from 60 to whatever you get to. This group is apparently a demographic that does everything the same, so it is not further subdivided. Apparently I will eat, shop, and entertain myself at 100 in the exact same way as I will at 60. I can’t wait to start listening to country music in earnest.

I don’t feel old, though. In fact, after spending all of my 50s running regularly (barring injury/snow) I feel pretty decent2The weather could be better, though. They predict only a high of 16C today and a chance of showers. Decent for running, less so for basking in the final days of summer.

And that’s really all I have to say. Here, then, is the Bitmoji version of me eating a birthday cake:

This site has reached new heights! (of double digits)

I got my monthly Jetpack report, dig it1Do cool kids say “dig” now? I want to be hip again. I want to be lit, or a banger, or something.:

That number of visitors translates to about 12 per day! A dozen people! That is double digits. Double digits is only one away from triple digits, and from there the sky’s the limit.

I want to thank the following for making this success possible:

  • Birds
  • Jogging (?)
  • Lists
  • Doodlings
  • That writing prompt I did about a barista going back in time to kill Hitler