Yes, I created a Mastodon account.
No, I don’t really use Twitter all that much and may use Mastodon even less, but I like the idea of being on a decentralized social media platform that isn’t about hate and being clever at the expense of others. We’ll see how it goes.
Here I am. Follow me!
@stanjames@mstdn.social
As Betteridge’s Law would dictate, the answer is no.
But I remember the olden days when book series were relatively uncommon, and seen mostly in a few specific genres, like fantasy and science fiction.
Now we have zombie apocalypse stories that span 10 books. What is added to a zombie apocalypse story by increasing its length by ten times? More zombies, I suppose.
I don’t need more zombies, though, I just need one really good zombie story that is contained within a single novel, so I can read it, enjoy it, then move on to something else that probably has fewer zombies in it. I like variety, my time is limited. Help me, invisible market forces!
This feels like it should have been a tweet, except it’s too long. Maybe I should start a Mastodon account.
I never knew there was a video for the song “Funky Town” but of course there is. And it is magnificently 80s, from the pink jumpsuits to the “sophisticated” video effects, the line that sounds like the intro to a 1980s video game and, of course, the robot (dance). It truly has it all.
It’s also a pretty weird song, when you think about it.
Even the YouTube thumbnail is amazing!
I got an email from Flickr inviting me to use their print services to print out and cherish/send my photos to others.
This is how they are attempting to persuade people to do this:
Did I have a “How do you do, my fellow kids?” moment and miss how “sh*t” is now the cool, hip way to say “shot”? But also it looks like “shit” so it’s…funny? Edgy? Dumb?
Dumb.
UPDATE: I have taken the newsletter to its logical (rear) end. Behold:
Snow, that is, which sprinkled over the area on Monday night. It’s pretty much gone now, but the mental scars from seeing snow in the second week of November will linger on.
It’s early in the month, but with our first cold snap imminent, it is time. I present Cold Cat:
Haiku to Uncertainty In uncertain times One reaches out to comforts Oh no my waist grows
(Don’t worry, I’m good now, but for a few weeks this month, let’s just say that me and Pop-Tarts got re-acquainted.)
Just as the gods meteorologists predicted, today the weather has actually changed. This may not seem remarkable, but considering we’ve had virtually no rain for three months, it kind of is!
It’s currently 9C and instead of getting up to an unseasonably warm 18, 20 or 22C, the high is forecast as a mere 11C! There is actual precipitation lightly falling, even as I type this. It’s pretty crazy.
And now, a pair of cats prepared for the rain:
I spent most of the day with a headache and did a lot of not much at all, other than laying on the bed, drifting in and out of sleep, and having weird dreams.
I did end the day with a 40-minute workout on the treadmill, though. so there’s that.
The haiku:
The head starts pounding Seek a magic pill to fix Modern life is great
(Hi, hi, hi)
I’m sure this forecast will change, but wanted to preserve it for the record.
The normal temperature for October 16 is 15C, the record is 20C, so this would break the record by 8C (or over 14F if you want a larger, even more alarming number).
Not cool. (Geddit?!)
I had this dream last night:
I was the passenger in a car that felt like a small sedan, somewhat sport, like an Acura or a nice Hyundai or something. The driver was a younger guy who seemed to be a nephew or some kind of relative. In the dream, I did not have a good feeling about his driving.
We were on a mountain highway–you can probably see where this is going (no pun intended)–and it reminded me of the Upper Levels Highway on the way to Horseshoe Bay or maybe the Malahat Drive on the way to Victoria–a windy highway that hugs the face of the mountain, with water hundreds of meters below. As we sped along, I saw ahead of us a bunch of fir tree branches, like you might find on a typical Christmas tree. Why they were laying across the highway I cannot say, but instead of driving around them, my possible nephew drove over them, perhaps thinking them a minor obstacle. As he did, the car got caught on them and started drifting into the oncoming lanes.
I distinctly remember audibly saying in a very calm voice, “No no no no no…” as I knew this would not end well. Surprisingly, my nephew did that “steer into the skid” thing, corrected and got us back on our side of the road without hitting any of the oncoming traffic. “Yay!” my dream-self thought. But only for a moment, because while we were in our own lane, we were not heading down the lane, but rather across it, at full speed. There was no time to correct, nor was there even time for me to chant, “No no no no…” to myself again. I did have sufficient time to absolutely know this would not end well.
I woke up either just before the car hit the concrete barrier at full speed, or just as it hit. I laid there in bed with the dream still fully intact in my mind, my imagination playing through what would have happened next:
In both cases, the chance of survival would be pretty much zero, unless right at the end it turned into one of those, “Hey, I can fly!” dreams. That might have been worth staying asleep for. But as mentioned in the title of this post, while my subconscious hates me (by subjecting me to this dream), it still respects me enough to wake me up before the really bad parts happen.
So here’s a half-hearted thank you to my brain. Tonight, if I dream, I want the dream to be pleasant and delightful. It doesn’t have to be enchanting, too, though I wouldn’t object to that. And if any cliffs are involved, I better be able to fly, even if it’s by flapping my arms.
This is the 60th post I’ve written this month. I don’t know why I felt compelled to make sure I had an average of two posts per day for the month, but here they are!
And now a Bitmoji of me eating a birthday cake:
