CSotD: Humpday Just When We Needed It
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This may be a rerun, since the strip seems to be in that mode, but it’s timely enough to have Danny of an age to think of such things. It’s also timely because I’m trying to declutter and I have a box of ancient cords and also a deep desk drawer of them.
And it’s especially timely because I just bought a new sound bar for my computer and it came with a USB cord instead of a regular plug. Apparently the maker hasn’t noticed that computer makers are cutting down the number of USB ports to just enough for a cordless mouse and a keyboard and, yes, I can use the kind of transformer you use to recharge your phone but guess what — despite the box, despite the drawer — I’ve only got one, which I use to charge my phone and my Fire, which brings us to this:
I’ve had a Kindle but it died and so I’m reading each night from my Fire, which not only works very well for that but on which you can play games, which I don’t think you can do on a Kindle but then again I never tried.
I chuckled over this, but I’m headed up into the Adirondacks this summer and I’m going to have to ask around and see where things stand. There was a time when nothing penetrated the wilderness and I’d refer to my phone as an Adirondack Pocket Watch, but the last time I was there I was able to file CSotD by driving down to the community center at 4 am and writing in the parking lot using their connection.
We shall see, but don’t be surprised if there’s a brief period of “Best of” coming in July, because I’m not doing that again.
Speaking of life in the boonies, Arlo & Janis are adapting to their new lives in a more remote part of the Gulf Coast, but it seems luxurious to me. With the mines and the mill having shut down a few decades ago, a crossroads market with poor selection would be a luxury back home. There is a gas station with milk, bread and so forth, but real grocery shopping is 30 miles away.
The village is too remote to attract a Dollar General. And when people talk about rural medical care, that’s us: We opened a small hospital back when the iron mine and the paper mill were in operation, and we’re damned if we’re going to give it up now, because even stabilize-and-transport is a rare luxury thereabouts and you don’t want to drive 30 miles for that.
Back to the topic of computers and ancient times, this reminded me of an idea I had for a computer game back at the dawn of time when games were more conceptual than graphic. The idea was that you’d send a number of ships out on trading voyages and then wait to see if they came back at all and in what condition.
The flaw in the strip is that he wouldn’t know what had happened to any ship that wasn’t right there anchored in port except by rumor. An incoming ship would hail an outgoing ship, exchange mail and bring back what news they had. They’d also swap books, having read all of theirs, and I recall in Two Years Before the Mast excitement over getting the latest Walter Scott novel from a passing ship.
But I also remember great excitement at the beginning of The Count of Monte Cristo that the ship had appeared at all, since they had no clue as to when or whether it would return.
Anyway, my computing skills at the time consisted mostly of booting up my TI-Pro, so the game never happened.
Juxtaposition of the Day
We’re still fighting off winter, though I gather the upper midwest just got a heapin’ helpin’ and I ought not to complain. Still, if I had a dog who considered it a trudge, she’d be trudging around in the yard on a cable.
Unfortunately, she finds sniffing in the snow-covered grass and chasing squirrels through the woods with her bestie the height of her day, so we meet every morning for two people trudging and two dogs cavorting. Wintertime winds blow cold this season, trudging with dogs I hope not to be. Winter’s so cold, is that the reason? Holding your leash while you run from me.
Easy. You put a pillow over the air intake, and when they open the hatch to breathe, you toss in a Molotov cocktail. (One of my high school friends was a Hungarian refugee.)
Though in this country, people have real problems to deal with.
Mostly each other.
Fortunately, our government has found a solution to most problems. I’d mention, however, that, while bribery seems to work on most things, suing them doesn’t. But we don’t do politics on Humpday.
I have great sympathy for Becky, because I’ve been dealing with a bad back for so long that it’s practically normal and I can’t remember when it started, except that I used to cheerfully walk five miles and now I’m done after 100 yards.
I had an MRI five years ago and I went to a chiro, and it felt good while he was working on it but whatever he did didn’t last as far as the parking lot. Finally last month I had another MRI and either I’m worse or they found something, because they said I could get a shot of steroids. On May 27.
I don’t mind waiting five years to find a solution, but if I have to wait three months for that solution, it had damn well better work.
First of all, 100 years probably sounds old to a baby, but a hundred years ago is just Hemingway, and he’s modern. I’ve a couple of books nearly twice that old.
While speaking of old, here’s an oldie about books that some of you will remember it. It’s Norwegian but it’s even more fun if you pretend it’s Middle English.
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