A Post on Friday

Replaced license plate. Planted books. Chess at Common Ground. Ran. Read Shakespeare and Programming book. Moderate whisky.

Four Minutes.

It took four minutes to watch an inch of incense burn.  Later, I ate oysters and saltines on the patio.

My feet are cold.

I'm wearing two pairs of socks, but my feet are still cold. Doing chess puzzles and drinking coffee.

A good time had by all.

Winter lingers...just cold enough to stay indoors. Visited old friends yesterday. A great March Madness gathering, our generous host made food and drink abundant, there were games and conversation, and a good time had by all.

A Post on Friday.

Got a crown put in today. They didn't have laughing gas, but I went through with it anyway. My dentist is good about no pain, but I am a fan of the laughing gas. All went well.

Installing Python 3.7.2

Rain. 37 degrees. 

"dice, Venus, and the tavern!"

'"Poor purse ... How cruelly thou hast been gutted by dice, Venus, and the tavern!"'

-- The Hunchback of Notre Dame book VI chapter IV

Android Down, serialized, Chapter 7

Android Down, serialized, Chapter 7 http://www.danmanning.com/androidWeb/chapter7.asp

Android Down, serialized, Chapter Five

Android Down, serialized, Chapter Five

http://www.danmanning.com/androidWeb/chapter5.asp

wrong number

Went to microwave a cup of coffee: punched in the last four of my SSN.

Read more poetry

Emily Dickinson or GTFO.

Reading

Reading Why Buddhism is True, by Robin Wright

2018 in Review

This year that thing happened and we were all like, NO WAY! And some people wore suits or pant-suits and spoke into microphones. Then some political stuff happened, and we were like, NO WAY! ARGUE ARGUE ARGUE! But then something new happened, probably on television or in the news.

Some good TV series ended or began, and some people were like, THIS IS SO AWESOME, and others were like, "Meh."

There were some award shows, where men wore tuxedos and women showed off their fancy dresses, and everyone was like, "She looked this way or that!"

Then some science stuff happened, and robots. Just last year, we were all thinking, I can't believe 2016 is already over with, there was so much bullshit. What bullshit is going to happen next? And bullshit DID happen. This year we are all thinking, I can't believe 2017 is over with, there was so much bullshit, What bullshit is going to happen next?

Sports and award shows, and weather happened. There were some emergencies. Some people got all shot up and we were all sad for a few days, but then sports happened.

And economy. Gas prices were one price, and then another. There were jobs and stuff, or no jobs, and men in ties stood at microphones and said some stuff.

So anyway. Freedom 2018.

Puzzle

http://lichess.org/training/69448

description of "Resting Bitch Face" found in classic literature

Here is Nathaniel Hawthorne, in the mid 1850s, describing Resting Bitch Face (alternatively known as Bitchy Resting Face) in his book, The House of the Seven Gables

"Face to face with this picture, on entering the apartment, Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon came to a pause;regarding it with a singular scowl, a strange contortion of the brow, which, by people who did not know her, would probably have been interpreted as an expression of bitter anger and ill-will.  But it was no such thing.  She, in fact, felt a reverence for the pictured visage, of which only a far-descended and time-stricken virgin could be susceptible; and this forbidding scowl was the innocent result of her near-sightedness, and an effort so to concentrate her powers of vision as to substitute a firm outline of the object instead of a vague one.

We must linger a moment on this unfortunate expression of poor Hepzibah's brow.  Her scowl,--as the world, or such part of it as sometimes caught a transitory glimpse of her at the window, wickedly persisted in calling it,--her scowl had done Miss Hepzibah a very ill office, in establishing her character as an ill-tempered old maid; nor does it appear improbable that, by often gazing at herself in a dim looking-glass, and perpetually encountering her own frown with its ghostly sphere, she had been led to interpret the expression almost as unjustly as the world did.  "How miserably cross I look!" she must often have whispered to herself; and ultimately have fancied herself so, by a sense of inevitable doom.  But her heart never frowned.  It was naturally tender, sensitive, and full of little tremors and palpitations; all of which weaknesses it retained, while her visage was growing so perversely stern, and even fierce."

Haiku171107

Thundering silence
The public restroom
Too quiet

Haiku 171104

"Clever as a gizzard"
The Scarecrow
Makes no sense

Haiku171103

Stairway to Heaven
At memorial service
Turn off your cell phones

Haiku171102

Anything is possible
Except folding clothes
While eating Cheetos

Haiku 171101

The panicked
Old woman
Sees a message
On her screen