Thursday  29 Dec 2022           comment?

I've always hated neckties. Part of what I like about rural life is how you never see them. Well, almost. Tellers at the bank in town still wear them but there's seldom any reason to set foot inside the bank anymore. I miss interaction with tellers, especially when they recognize you. One day when I was a teenager, my dad told me he'd had this conversation at the bank:

teller:	Hello Mr. Ace. Your son was here earlier today.
my dad:	Was it a deposit or a withdrawal?
teller:	I'm not at liberty to tell you that.

I miss when income tax refunds came as checks and you could get them in any amount you wanted: The check shown here looks to have been printed by a line printer, specifically a drum printer. I miss those too. They made a great noise when printing a line full of all the same character and all the hammers struck at once.

Monday  26 Dec 2022           comment?

Thursday  22 Dec 2022           comment?

Tuesday  20 Dec 2022           comment?

It's 2022 and US courts still publish opinions without f i and f f i ligatures.

Sunday  18 Dec 2022           1 comment

Six years ago, I blogged about recurring dreams in which I was friends with various rock musicians. I said I didn't want to "drop names and say which musicians have been my friends in dreams" but then named the one who'd featured in a dream the night before.

OK, I'm going to name another one. I met Frank Zappa once for real, about 40 years ago. He's since been in a few of my dreams. I know the difference when I'm awake--but in a dream I just had, I told someone that I'd hung out with Zappa several times. What happens in dreamworld stays real in dreamworld.

Thursday  08 Dec 2022           comment?

A climber friend broke a bone in his foot recently. I rode with him up to Bishop yesterday where he was getting a cast put on.

We stopped along the way to buy gasoline. I wanted to get out and stretch my legs but I hesitated because I wasn't sure he had his keys with him. I did get out, he had left his keys in the car, and somehow the car doors locked with us outside.

Neither of us got angry, no one yelled, no one kicked anything. We got someone to bring us his other set of keys. The doctor's office accommodated him even though we ran a bit late.

I was riding along so that I could pick up my car after having had work done on it in Bishop. The shop doesn't have a big lot and parks customers' cars on the street nearby. When I got my car back, the rear license plate had been stolen. I don't know whether someone wanted the plate or the frame that said Lone Pine / Mt. Whitney but they relieved me of both.

I got new plates at the DMV office in Bishop. They lent me a screwdriver to put them on, which impressed both me and another customer who saw it happen.

I miss the old plates because they contained a word, they read 3GYM168, and, as dictionary.com reminds us, a gymnasium was

a place where Greek youths met for exercise and discussion

and derives from gymnázein: to train in the nude.

Sunday  04 Dec 2022           comment?

Yesterday, the guy who lost to Joe Biden said that the "Massive Fraud" (caps in original) in the 2020 election justifies ditching all the rules, including those in the Constitution.

George Stephanopoulos talking to Representative David Joyce (R-OH), this morning:

Stephanopoulos:	... you'd support a candidate who's come out for suspending the Constitution?
Joyce:	Well, you know, he says a lot of things. You have to take him in context. ...
Stephanopoulos:	But—but that's an extraordinary statement. You can't come out against someone who's for suspending the Constitution?
Joyce:	Well, first off, he hasn't—he has no ability to suspend the Constitution. Secondly, I don’t—
Stephanopoulos:	But he says he's for it.
Joyce:	Well, you know, he says a lot of things that—but that doesn't mean that it's ever going to happen.

A senior (unnamed) Republican official, speaking to the WaPo in November 2020 about the loser's claims of voter fraud:

What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? ... It's not like he’s plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on January 20.

Thursday  01 Dec 2022           comment?

New York City is looking to hire a Director of Rodent Mitigation. From the job listing:

Despite their successful public engagement strategy and cheeky social media presence, rats are not our friends

Qualified applicants should have a "general aura of badassery" and can expect to be "traveling throughout the five burrows".