Nonsensical Rambling

Tomorrow, I have to work on a bathroom sink. It involves replacing this throat looking thingie and the stopper. Everyone says it’s simple, but they don’t know me very well.

My idea of tool usage is the ice maker.

What I want to do is work through my critiques of The Yak Guy Project. The guys liked it, and there isn’t a lot to fix, but I want to check it off my list.

I also have another full read, with markup, of The Experimental Notebook II. This one addresses some really meaty concerns, and I can’t wait to tear into it. Except there is that sink project.

Which brings me to this guy.

Speaking of Wile E., here is something that baffles me. Decades ago, the world censors decided that children’s programming was too violent. They pulled many classic cartoons off the shelf in favor of something called edu-tainment.

The poor misguided children of that era are now the same ones shooting up schools, rallies, nightclubs, etc. Do we need to bring back The Three Stooges, Tom & Jerry, and others? I know I prefer them to almost everything on television, and I’ve never gone postal.

***

Does anyone remember this guy?

Once upon a time, a long loooong time ago, this guy was kind of an anti-Mickey Mouse. They put these humorous/monstrous characters in all kinds of artwork, most notably tee-shirts. This was the most famous one.

If we went to the store with Mom, and were good, we got a quarter to put in the machine. Ratfink was the top prize we could get. I must have had a dozen of these things.

The important part of this story is that we had to be good. This wasn’t an idle bluff. We (my brother and I for clarity) learned what ramifications are. We learned about winning and losing at Little League Baseball. I don’t know where I’m going with this, I warned you that I’m rambling tonight.

Maybe it’s the idea that learning about right and wrong, winning and losing, & rewards based upon results might have taught me not to… I don’t know, shoot up the DMV.

***

I learned a trick, the hard way. I’ve read a dozen times about pinning a tweet. I’ve never done it, until recently. There are some folks out there who prepare a tweet about my books and send them out into the world. These aren’t retweets, they actually took the time to grab a cover image, make a link, the whole thing.

To be nice, I wanted to tweet out something about their wares. Many authors don’t have a pinned tweet. Those that do, I will retweet that out in appreciation. I scrolled down a few timelines and found something for the others.

I decided I need to make a pinned tweet to make it easy for someone to share one of my books too. Therefore; if you’re so inclined, you can retweet my pinned tweet at your convenience.

***

The online world has been really dead lately. I’m not the only one to notice, and several people spoke up via comments or private email.

Things are different online right now. I never cared much for the awards, and bowed out of those years ago. I participated occasionally in the little challenges. You know the ones where we have to post a photo of our writing space or something.

Challenges and awards seem to have dried up lately. Does this indicate they have run their course? Could it be that netizens are interacting less, choosing to be lurkers instead? Did the crowd I started with move along? Many of them have.

The only thing difficult about most challenges is fingering your friends. Let’s try one, but I’m not fingering anyone. If you want to play, play. Let me know and I’ll go read your post.

Here’s the challenge: The world is ending. Pick your favorite apocalypse, and write away. The point is that you have less than two weeks, and there is no way out. The politically connected will survive, but the middle and lower classes are doomed. Your time is limited, what will you do? Here’s mine:

***

I grabbed an old soft-sided travel bag and dropped my .45ACP in the bottom. The broadcast networks went down days ago, there were riots in the streets. I grabbed some old CDs in the off chance they might still play somewhere.

The streets were silent today. Maybe the mob lost its ambition. The smell of smoke filled the air, and a faint sound of weeping came from some of the homes I walked past on my way to the grocery store. The store was locked, but an outside display of paving stones remedied that. I hurried, before the crowd showed up to loot the place. The sound of breaking glass would attract them for sure.

All I really wanted was a couple of ribeye steaks, some baking potatoes, and maybe a couple of ears of corn. A bottle of George Dickel #12 caught my eye on the way out, and I added it to my kit.

Now I’m going to steal the most outrageously cool car I can find and hit the open road, and I’m not going alone. I’ll hang my Ratfink from a chain around the mirror and leave rubber all over the streets when I leave. I’ll plug in one of the CDs and listen to Aerosmith or ACDC on my way out of town.

The goal? We’re going to drive like maniacs, I’ll feel the wind in my beard, and play my music full blast. Then We’re going to enjoy a nice steak dinner under the stars, drink the whiskey, and if I’m lucky, I’ll leave a crater so baffling that future archaeologists will wonder about it for the next thousand years.

***

You can spend your last days any way you like. Maybe you want to visit your grandmother, or scratch something off your bucket list. Tell me about it.

Now that my head’s clear, I suppose I’d better work on one of my editing projects. Have a nice evening.