Tag Archives: interest

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Blog Prompt 6-7/8ths

Scour the news for an entirely uninteresting story. Consider how it connects to your life. Write about that.

This prompt reads like it was composed by a Taylor Swift fan, or a MAGA hat speech attendee.  If it is entirely uninteresting, how could it possibly connect to my life??  Okay, here goes….

Back in January of last year, an ostrich farm in British Columbia had three or four of their flock die because of avian flu.  The owners destroyed the diseased birds, and there was no further indication of infection.  Around the first of August, the inappropriate government agency, working at the breakneck speed of smell, notified them that they had to euthanize the balance of a 3000-bird flock.  Appeal is still pending.

Watch how I string this together, like beads on a necklace.

I have attended several Renaissance Faires.  One of the few, historically-accurate foods sold, are entire, roast, turkey legs.  One of those will keep a normal adult male busy all afternoon – or a hyperactive kid about ten minutes.

Vendors would need larger roasters/smokers, and the captive-audience price could break the food budget, but a whole, roast ostrich leg could feed a family of four or five.

I had one emu burger at a French-fry wagon.  It tasted like chicken – ‘cause everything tastes like chicken –at twice the price.

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Fibbing Friday #287

Rubbish questions from Pensitivity101 last week. No doubt your definitions will be more interesting!

1. Baloney

In The Excited States, it is also known as ‘Hillbilly steak.’  Fry up a thick slice of that, and slap it between two slices of Wonder Bread™ with lots of ketchup, and it even makes Spam seem like an epicurean viand.  On the other side of The Pond, it’s a stone in Ireland, which a lot of people want to stand on their heads and kiss.

2. Hogwash

This is a money-raising, charity event, where scantily-clad young women clean and polish Harley-Davidsons.

3. Codswallop

That was a comedy bit from the old black and white movies, that wasn’t quite as funny as the pie fights.

4. Bunkum

That’s the semi-sticky stuff that looks like kids’ Play-Doh, which people use to mount photos or signs, without damaging walls.

5. Claptrap

Tradition is peer pressure from dead people.  Live people now give a standing ovation at the end of movies, or when a pilot lands a plane, when the person just doing their job can’t even hear it. I produced three-quarters of a million Jeep CJ sound-abatement panels, and nobody applauded me.

6. Fly tipping

That’s what happens when I don’t wave the beer-bugs away from my bottles of liquid inspiration.  I’m not drinking that 3%/alcohol American mouthwash, or even the 5% They all taste the same, the only difference is the labels Canadian excuse for beer.  I’m drinking 7.4% imported Bavarian dark ale.  Anybody see a weekend lying around??  I seem to have lost one (or two).

7. Tripe

When the colours in the knitting are all off on an angle or scattered into weird colour groupings.

8. Balderdash

He was the younger brother of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, in the Shakespeare play, Hamlet.  He was a carpenter/woodworker who built little dollhouse porches around King Claudius’ ears, so that Hamlet could pour poison in.

9. Trash

This was the style of music that eventually gave way to Heavy Metal.

10. Scrap

What’s left, after a healthy teenage boy goes through the fridge after school – not scraps, a scrap.  You thought there’d be leftover roast beef for supper??!  😮  Maybe enough for one sandwich.

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’24 A To Z Challenge – X

I’ve already done a “Thanks For The Mammaries” post, so, if I’m gonna talk about melons, they better be the kind that grow on vines.  I once used Jimmy Durante’s sign-off line, Good night Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are, to respond to a commenter.  It caused some confusion because, unlike me, not many bloggers were born during the Industrial Revolution.  Calabash is a type of long, hard-shelled melon or gourd.

Words beginning with the letter X are thin on the ground – and up in the air – and in trees – and even in dictionaries.  INTERESTING words beginning with the letter X are even rarer.  After much debate, I decided on

XIGUA

When I first researched it, it was described as an African melon, but when I dived in deeper, it became an Asian melon.  Okay, – what kind of melon?  Large?  Small?  Long?  Round?  Soft-shell?  Hard-shell?  It turns out that it is a Chinese watermelon.  You know – the only fruit that you can eat, drink, and wash your face in.  The main difference between it and American watermelons, is that, instead of the inner flesh being red, it can be lemon-yellow, or a bright, lime-green.

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’24 A To Z Challenge – Q

QUICK

What’s an interesting word that starts with Q, for the A to Z challenge??!  😕

QATAR

An Arabic, stringed instrument

No, I thought I’d go with

QUANGO

(especially in the United Kingdom) a semipublic advisory and administrative body supported by the government and having most of its members appointed by the government.
Origin of quango
First recorded in 1975–80; qu(asi)-a(utonomous) n(on-)g(overnmental) o(rganization) or qu(asi)-a(utonomous) n(ational) g(overnmental) o(rganization)

After the above definition, Dictionary.com gives five sample sentences, using the word – every one of them referring to a river in Africa.

You mean it’s not a hybrid cross between a kumquat and a mango??  I thought Quango was the wife of the movie character, Django.  I just wrote of finding an anachronism in the movie, where Django was using red sticks of dynamite in the pre-civil war South, decades before Nobel developed it.

I recently viewed another clip on YouTube, where Django has been captured, and is trying to buy his freedom by identifying four wanted men for their rewards – an older brother, with a Wanted, Dead or Alive value of $7000, and three younger siblings worth $1500 each.

This is seriously wrong, but I know why it was done.  At his height, Billy the Kid was only worth $500, a lot of money at that time, but modern audiences would think that it was petty cash.

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A Road Not Taken

What alternative career paths have you considered or are interested in?

The days of lifelong careers is past, even for the University-educated.  Social and employment needs and standards morph and alter almost daily.  Especially for the under-educated like me, constant evolution and change are inevitable.  Even ignoring workplace politics, it becomes imperative to adapt and improve – leaving failing industries, and accepting new challenges.

Even in my retirement, I am continuously perfecting my couch-potato, and blogger, positions.  In my brief half-century of working life, I was a bank clerk, a golf pro (in name only – to protect the “real pro’s” amateur standing), a (very small) office manager, a Community College instructor, a production clerk, a time-study clerk, an inventory clerk, Inventory Manager, expeditor, buyer, Purchasing Agent, Materials Manager, Outside Salesman, security guard, shoe-parts cutter, auto-parts press operator, metal-shop press operator, and rail-shipping framer.

There’s really not enough room for any more.  I’ve been a student, a husband, a father, a wage-earner, a mentor, a role-model, and a good citizen.  With my physical and mental limitations, I am satisfied with what I have been.  You really don’t want old Sheldon Shaky-Hands doing your eye surgery – or even your taxes.

😳

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’24 A To Z Challenge – C

As the housewife said to the kettle, when she saw that it had boiled dry….

O I C U R MT

Once upon a time, the definition of “Dictionary”, in the dictionary, was not “Dictionary.”  Despite three similar but different religions – Greek, Eastern Orthodox (Russian), and Roman – using it to identify themselves, the word Catholic means universal in extent; involving all; of interest to all.

Five Hundred years or more ago, The (Roman) Catholic Church compiled definitions and meanings of ALL the words and phrases – at least all the Holy, Religious ones – let the peasant rabble speak what vernacular they wished.  Since all the important meanings were included, they called it The

CATHOLICON

It was more than a mere book, or single volume.  Copies of it consisted of small libraries.  Like Samuel Johnson’s later Dictionary, social, political, and religious commentary was added to the meanings.  Johnson’s definition of Oats was, a cereal grass, which in England feeds horses, but in Scotland, it feeds the men.  An English baron exclaimed, “But what horses!  And what men!

What I’m going to do is Decide on a suitable word choice for the letter D.  I would be de-lighted (placed in the dark) if one of my readers made a suggestion.  D-cells?  D-cups??!  Defenestrate??  No, that one’s out the window.  😉

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’23 A To Z Challenge – Z

I don’t hate everybody….
I don’t know everybody!
People are perverts….all except me – and possibly you.

One day last year, Dictionary.com reported increases in the number of look-ups for several words.  Some were political, like MAGA, and Antifa.  The research on them was understandable.  The word

ZOOLAGNIA

Had had an 1800% increase in research.

First, I had to know WHAT.  The Psychological Dictionary describes it as carnal attraction to animals.  Then I wanted to know WHY.  Just what, and where, had something occurred, that spurred an 18-times increase in interest in that term. Perhaps it was only one guy last month, and 19 this month, but still….  When I went back to double-check the exact definition, Dictionary.com no longer admits that the word even exists.

I never found out, and it’s probably just as well.  The guy at my last job who brought in animal porn, was convicted of raping his teenage daughter.  He tried to race me on my motorcycle from a traffic light and cut me off, with his full-size van.  Several years later, apparently someone knocked on his door, and then shot him dead.  It seems that someone hated him even more than I did.  👿

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Money In The Bank

Another heaping helping of OCD??
No thanx!  I’ve got enough already.

The first 15 blogs that I posted, I typed directly into WordPress, and published immediately, subject to random fits of creativity.

THEN I GOT SMART!

I found out about opening a Word file, composing whenever the Muse and I had a one-night-stand, and posting on an established schedule.  Soon I had a dozen posts ‘in the bank,’ ready to go as needed.  Over several years, that number continued to climb – first to 15 – then 20.

I take this blogging thing as seriously as I used to regard any of my jobs.  It is a self-imposed penance.  Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.  It has been nine days since I have written a word.
Say five Hail Marys my son, and create three amusing posts.  (Just not about The Church, my son.  His Holiness has heard about you, and has sent me an email.)  😈

I can’t be trusted to produce a steady output.  Whenever I have a flash of genius, or just steal a post-theme from another blogger, I bank it in my ‘Blog Notes’ file.  I schedule to publish three posts a week.  I would write three in a day, or five in three days – then not produce a thing for a week.  Once I banked thirteen posts in eight days, and produced nothing more for over two weeks.

Of course, four of those were comedy posts.  I trawl for acceptable jokes, and drop them into the same file.  Control-C/Control-V them into their own posts, and I can build four of them at a time, in an hour.  Slowly but surely, the bank gained interest.  Soon I was up to 25…. and then 30 waiting posts.  Add a few – publish a few – I only worried when the total fell below 20.

Finally, I reached 35 in the bank, and then, a particularly productive week came upon me.  Even with publishing three, the sediment deposit piled up to 39 – and I was so proud of myself.  A tour through blog-post land quickly let the hot air out of my balloon.

One female’s blog-theme was, “Am I The Only One With 57 Unpublished Posts In A Word File??!”
57??  Who does she think she is – Heinz?  It only got worse from there.  One reader stated that she had 113.  Another lady claimed that she had 125.

I need someone to squeeze my head like a lemon rind, to get a few more drops of snark out of me, and onto the page.  The online conversation continued, and finally, my heart palpitations calmed down.  Not one of them had that many unpublished “posts.”  What every one of them had was – an idea here, a theme there, an interesting concept, an opening sentence, a paragraph or two of prose.

The best thing about my posts is – They’re finished.  Interesting or boring, educational or mind-numbingly banal, peaceable or confrontational – they’re done – ready to publish.  There were 41 titles on my unpublished list, but this was one of three that weren’t actually complete yet, so I’m still only at 39.  If I can just get those other two completed by Friday, I’ll set a new personal best record.  How about you??  Do you bank posts?

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Between the time this post was originally composed – and now, I accepted the 2022 BEDA Challenge – Blog Every Day in April.  Besides my regularly scheduled 13 posts, I will need another 17.  I have composed a warning post, to be published in late-March, and nine of the seventeen others.

With COVID closing the Canada/US border, Erato, my Muse, has not been able to get to Daytona Beach to take part in Girls Gone Wild videos.  She’s been snuggling up to me, and whispering in my ear more than usual.  My unpublished list has reached 55 twice, and now hovers nearer to 50, than 40.  😀  😎

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WOW #67

After doing some navel-gazing recently – and cleaning out the lint – I came upon a word which rhymes with Pedant.

Fussbudget

WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF FUSSBUDGET?

Fussbudget, “one who is fussy or needlessly faultfinding,” is a transparent compound of the nouns fuss “bustle, commotion” and budget “itemized list of funds or expenses.” The word entered English in the early 20th century; it became associated with the character Lucy Van Pelt in the comic strip Peanuts in the 1960s.

HOW IS FUSSBUDGET USED?

He was a fussbudget. His interest in ideas didn’t match his interest in small, and often silly, facts. Much of the time he saw neither the forest nor the trees but only a bit of the undergrowth.

I thought that I was pretty good at being a fussbudget, but the wife insists that I am a rank amateur – and not only because we just had baked beans.  She holds a Third or Fourth Black Belt in Fussbudgetry.

She has ‘color-coded, properly-filed’ lists of ways to be, and not be, a true fussbudget.  She has CDO – which is a lot like OCD, only the letters are in the correct, alphabetical order.

Well, I’m off to obsess about the word-usage or punctuation in a bunch of other people’s posts, but I’ll be back with a new post in a couple of days.  You can count on that!  I already have a timer set, to remind me.  You try to get your life in sufficient order that you show up to read it.

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WOW #45

Moping Emoji

I was gonna do the post for this word earlier. I really was. It’s not procrastination. I was in a blue funk.  Even though blue is my favorite color, I just couldn’t seem to find a reason to tell you about

MOPERY

All the interesting words that I could come up with, and I managed to find one that means

Noun

The actions or attitude of a person who is sunk in dejection or listless apathy, sulking, brooding, or dejected

I thought that ‘listless’ meant that I wasn’t keeping up with my 2019 A To Z Challenge words, but I found that it just means ‘not interested’ or ‘indifferent.’ I don’t give a damn.

Then I found out that someone had opened a Papa John’s Pizza outlet, right down the hill from me. We really needed one. Within a two-block stretch we only had a Gino’s, Topper’s, Little Caesar’s, Domino’s, and Double-Double. I need a little variety in my life. The Pizza Hut, just up the street, closed some years ago, so I guess it’s karma that the second pizza chain that John started is now here to tingle my taste-buds.

pizza

An all-meat pizza with hot sauce, and I’m out of my funk, and back to Funk and Wagnall’s dictionary for my next WOW. See you there.