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So, That Happened…(Part One)Or: Brain Trust
Tag Archives: Life During Wartime
Family Business 1
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When my father passed away (I think it was in 2007), there were only 13 people in attendance at his funeral. His four children and nine invited friends, a paltry amount of people considering all those he met and befriended in one way or another over seven decades. Memories of him being just Dad, or “Pop”, as we often called him, linger in my mind and can’t recall him being a poor parent or experiencing many hard times because of him. We had what I would call a “busy” relationship, in that as almost everyone was busy being a kid and got busy growing up while our parents both worked. There were good times and not so good times, but I can’t recall everything I’d like to at the moment, which is quite unfortunate, as I recall certain things, but pure memory tends to be quite an unreliable narrator if solely relied upon.
I recall hearing of his death from a relative who was “caring” for him and how disgustingly clinical the explanation was. I’ll admit my brain has since (more or less) blanked out almost every memory I had other that the time he took me to work (he was once a motorman for the MTA) and showed me how a subway train worked. Then, he let me take the train he was driving into the final stop on its route for about 25 feet or so (detailed here). Anyway, flash forward to now, that annoying relative has made a return at the very worst of times for everyone and I’m just not a happy camper as of this writing (to say the least). NO, I’m not planning anything drastic or dramatic at all. My life needs a lot less stress these days, period.
I do kind of need to borrow one of these, however:
-GW
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Catch Me If You Can…
So yeah, folks. After some arm pain, a stretch of extreme tiredness and general blah-ness. I’m finally feeling a lot better. I was warned that second shot would probably knock me for a loop and it did. Masks are still required at the supermarkets around here, so even though I’ve had both shots, I comply, just in case. Hey, I’ve heard a few customers note that either they, a relative or someone close had gotten sick and nope, for the moment, I’m Ieaving nothing to chance, at least for the next two weeks while the vaccine does its stuff.
I was starting to think I was getting a wee bit paranoid, but a few days ago when I got the mail, I rode up in the elevator with a guy who started coughing and sneezing through his mask (ewww). I actually wasn’t wearing a mask, as I figured I was only going downstairs for maybe 50 seconds and hell. what could possibly happen? So much for that now derailed bit of experimentation. At this point. I may just break out that old army surplus gas mask I’ve owned since the 90’s because the ONLY thing I want to catch these days is this:
-GW
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Book-ish
So, a few days late and no dollars short, here are most of the books that have shown up from a few small to large publishers last year when I was holed up and locked down. There are a few missing from this photo, as a friend needed some emergency reads and I was more than happy to oblige. I don’t think I’ve read this much fantasy and sci-fi in a row since high school, so it was a pretty interesting few months.
Then again, when you have two strokes, survive and need to teach yourself to read and write again, it’s definitely a good thing I was able to enjoy this lot of novels, albeit a bit slower than I used to. I was a bit of a speedy reader back in the day and when these books started showing up last year, it was a bit daunting at first. But the as the amount increased, I became quite determined to get through them all. So, yes – it helped with all these books showing up. Hooray for mailing lists, and sure, I may write a few short reviews on some of these down the road a piece.
-GW
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Happy(?) Feat
Well, here we go again… so to speak. We’re still in recovery mode here, but I’ve been a bit occupied with a bunch of books plus a few too many movies and games. I’ll post a few photos in a day or two of the books – all oddball but interesting fantasy stuff that’s come in over the last year when I was in not much of a mood to read anything light, but eventually ended up doing so because one kind of has no choice but to successfully divert oneself during a long lockdown.
Game-wise, as I now have a tablet here, I’ve discovered a few “free to start” games I like on the format where I’ve not spent a dime on them despite both games flirting with me to do so. Fire Emblem Heroes and Dragon Quest Tact, both which are franchises I’m a longtime fan of but I’d avoided the mobile games until DQT tempted me a month ago. The gacha aspect in both titles is a bit easy to ignore if you simply play the waiting game and use only the free daily rewards both games generously give you for regularly checking in. I have about 40 characters in FEH and just reached 80 of them in DQT (which I’ve been playing a few weeks longer). I haven’t spent a dime and amusingly enough, just got a free $5.00 credit from the Google Play Store, which made me laugh for a good few minutes because I may have to break my no spending on those two games rule (well, it’ll be about .48 on the tax if I use that free credit).
Been slowly going through some bigger games on the PS5, but that’s a longer post for another time. One day at a time, and so it goes. I guess I’m “happy” today, but let’s not get carried away. Yet. You know what happens when you get too overconfident these days.
-GW
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Voodoo, Child (Slight Return)
By either direct connection or extension, I know (knew?) quite a few recently deceased people, but I’d like to think some to too many of us do these days. That sort of balancing act is quite the bitch, by the way. One wanting to free up the mind space to be otherwise occupied by more lighter and vastly more entertaining fare gets into quite a tumble with actual reality when a message arrives that someone else has unexpectedly left the building.
Of course, the unmasked killer is still inside the house making collect worldwide phone calls and pretty much having its merry way with the rest of the planet’s tenants. As we’re discovering from assorted news outlets, during last year, response from the recently departed government had been awful, at best. Too many holes in rules state to state meant no national plan despite, as Roddy McDowell in a great Twilight Zone episode once noted, “People Are Alike All Over”.
Of course, it’s just past 4am and I hit publish too soon, but I’d guess you get the point here. Eh, I’m going to go back to bed now. I may re-edit this post later, but there’s a better chance I’ll post something else. We shall see.
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The Death Dealer, Too
(Thanks, Lex121100!)
Okay, I’m back. Sort of.
It’s been a bit of a rocky ride dealing with a recent demise, especially with a few big companies more or less trying to skimp their way out of paying proper annuity settlements. But we’ll not say more about that at the moment save for there’s a lot of things percolating in the background that need eyes kept on. In the meantime. it’s just been a total stress-fest in the writing department, although I have a small army of reviews in assorted states of completion. They’ll get posted at some point.
I suppose I should/could just be like others who post daily or more frequently and try to blank out the current nonsense in favor of a more rosy outlook, but it’s a bit tough what with all these follies going on in the periphery. That and, hell, every time I see someone here not wearing a mask or carrying one in their hand or a pocket then slapping in on as they walk into a shop, I want to dress up like El Kabong and give them a quick guitar lesson. But I don’t, as dressing like a cartoon horse and bashing folks on the head with a gitbox would probably be too sensible a solution and we just have to keep things crazy here in the US just because.
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Post Toasties
I’d really rather not waste such a good song on such a terminally bad person or group of people, but so it goes. Your tune for this Monday, which I hope is going as well as it should, rose colored blinders on or not:
(Thanks,TheGodfathersVEVO!)
So, we’re officially at this stage of the game now. Morbid humor as a reality check in some areas here, but it’s more a dry, hoarse chuckle from a very tired people at this point because we’re all tied to the couch as loud Uncle Bob starts setting up the old slide projector and has revved up some really bad Borscht Belt jokes to go with the carousel of everlasting pain:
(Thanks, Browingate!)
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Trouble (Living With It)
(Thanks, Thomas Barnett!)
So, the latest advice from the government is more or less let your abuser move right on it and sure, too many of you will possibly suffer the negative consequences. But hey, we’ll tell you you’re 99% safe and the economy is more important than staying alive because you can’t live without a little sacrifice. Or a lot of little sacrifices that add up to be a lot more. Maybe. My head hurts at all this sheer negligence going on, especially when a more urgent and actually powerful federal response would have worked better from the outset, but nope. It’s been hands off and putting people who have no scientific knowledge or care to grasp it “in charge” of not keeping millions of others safe. plus muzzling or talking over the science-minded folks when they speak out publicly, along with promoting the brick-headed, stubborn ones who are afraid of rocking a slowly sinking boat and its erratic Captain Queeg.
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Empanadas
(Thanks, Spaceprince72!)
Have you ever been hit in the brain by such a vivid dream that you wake up and think whatever was in that dream actually happened? Or worse, you woke up the next morning or at some point during the day to get dressed and go somewhere that doesn’t exist? Yes, that sort of happened a few days back and I wasn’t going to write about it, but this sort of thing happens quite a lot to quite a lot of people, I hear.
Anyway, I had a dream about empanadas a few days back that had me about to take a bite of one of the dozen I bought, then waking up and wanting to head out to a take out place somewhere in Harlem, if the dream was correct. Well, my brain’s GPS placed the restaurant there and as I’d lived in that area for a few years, I thought I knew exactly where it was located.
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 