Adaptive Curmudgeon

I’m a firm believer in two pieces of wisdom:

Aim small, miss small.

And

We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.

Both of those are stenciled in my head. Regrettably, I’ve been lazy. All year, when I should have been hitting my range (the backyard) and honing my marksmanship, I’ve been doing other things. As a proper redneck I’ll sometimes saunter out there and make some noise, terrify tin cans, toast a raccoon that’s harassing my hens, etc… But I’ve been weak on serious “practice”.

Big game season is afoot and it’s time to put up or shut up. I take hunting seriously; though not as serious as some. For example, I don’t hunt trophies, I’m happy with a doe or cow (elk) in the freezer. Also, I’ll sometimes sleep in; too many successive pre-dawn mornings make for a very cranky Curmudgeon. (Ask Dr. Mingo, he’s seen me in moods that’ll kill grass and make birds fall from the sky. Sleeping in fixes this.) But when it comes to the actual shot, I’m very uptight.

As punishment for my transgression, I chose to go to a nearby range at the public sight in day.

Folks who yammer about gun control should see sight in day. This is the day (or more often days) when ranges (which have plenty of shooters on their own) open their doors for the general hunting public. “Non-joiners” like me show up en masse with every kind of deer and elk rifle imaginable. Each “guest” drops a few bucks on a “donation” to the range’s maintenance fund (and most, like me, are happy to do it). Then we queue up for our turn at the firing line. The range provides safety officers, targets, and spotters. If you’re lucky, they’ll provide shitty coffee and cheap donuts too!

It’s a friendly gathering of armed happy Americans that benefits everyone. The range gets to show off its facilities and troll for new members. Casual shooters get to use a nice range. The mood is festive; everyone is looking forward to the hunt and nothing is more fun than shooting. Men, women, youths, families, and even loners like me… everyone has a fine time while waiting for their turn at the firing line. Sometimes there’s a warming fire (depending on the weather) and everyone is happily dreaming of the hunt. It’s a community that gathers, performs a simple mechanical task with their favorite machines, and then disperses; smiling all the while. It’s a low key localized mini-Sturgis for hunters.

The firing line goes something like this:

Safety officer: “Line is hot, you’re on target 3.”

Shooter’s rifle: BAM

Spotter: “Three inches high and 2 to the left.”

Then the shooter adjusts his or her scope (or the occasional iron sights) and makes the usual excuses. “Huh, musta’ been the cheap ammo. Let me try again.”

“Go ahead. I’m watching target 3.”

BAM

“An inch and a half low, two to the right.”

Lather, rinse, repeat.

I like sight in day because a real range is an almost unimaginable luxury. Some ranges have a roof so you don’t get rained or snowed on!

I also like the nearby accumulated knowledge of all those friendly folks running the range. This is their favorite hobby! They’ll offer lots of encouragement and if my scope’s out of whack (which it never is), they’ll gather around like it’s the most interesting thing in creation. They’re dying to help out and they’ll invariably have little toolboxes with all the right tiny screwdrivers. They’ll also have benchrest vices for those who like ‘em and a sandbag or two for dinosaurs like me. They’re usually charitable with the struggling guy who’s trying to make due with a junk Tasco he got at a garage sale and a mount he “repaired” with broken bits and JB Weld.

For that poor fellow, they’ll have targets up close to “get on the paper”. They’ll lavish encouragement as he tweaks his scope wildly and they back him away from the close target to realistic distances. Meanwhile, everyone else thinks of the close target as “the target of shame” and is glad they’re not the focus of attention.

I once showed up at an event like this with a shitty scope on a sporterized Mosin-Nagant M44 and box of untested handloads… why do you ask?

While I have no regrets over dalliances with Russian junk I now hunt with a trusted rifle and an exceptional scope. The only reason to test the rifle’s point of aim (which is always spot on) is to prove to myself the scope hasn’t been battered. Also, since I’ve been ignoring my shooting skills lately, a dry run is always good.

More in next post…

…I sometimes enjoy watching train wrecks. Start of the story:

“Kelly dared to ask if there were any circumstances in which it would be okay for a White Devil to wear blackface — say, dressing up like Mr. T, as a friend of mine did one year, decades ago* — if there’s no intent to demean the race.”

Lets discuss a topic that people handle with grace and intelligence. For example, is blackface OK when…

Anyone who lives in 2018 knows folks are an inch from a freakout. Kelly’s method of testing the waters was to shove a honey badger up her ass to see if it would to bite.

Are you nuts lady? As punishment for your transgressions I order you to smell my armpit!

Then, of course, came the gnashing of teeth and rending of fabric. This [event] is an outrage and we demand [apology] because [snowflake].

Anyone who lives in 2018 knows apologies only work for Clintons (and possibly the UN?). All groveling, no matter how abject, is inadequate:

“Sometimes “I’m sorry” just doesn’t cut it — a hard lesson that NBC Today show host Megyn Kelly now understands.”

Of course, this is all carefully thought out individual opinion. Here’s a photo of CNN journalists working on that story:

All your base are belong to us.

There will be an employee evaluation process that goes like this:

So what’s the lesson here:

I guess it’s that there hasn’t been an outbreak of tolerance and kindness and interracial harmony? Or perhaps folks got no sense of humor? Or perhaps Mr. T, like Muhammad, cannot be emulated in costume?

I did however find one video that sums the whole thing up in 17 seconds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF25HKnXXmw

Have a great day y’all. Everyone laugh and be merry. May we all find Halloween costumes that miraculously piss off not a single person and may we all have at least the sense to keep our head down if we make our living on TV.

A.C.

Hat tip: Ace of Spades.

[Forgive the light posting lately. Shit happens.]

I mentioned earlier that I was playing around with PredictIt. (Don’t get excited, I’m risking money amounts that would barely buy a pizza.) In a market, any market, the devil is in the details. I had a few folks ask questions about it. Since I’ve gone a bit deeper down the rabbit hole, I can offer a bit more information.

• Buy in is roughly $10 minimum. I didn’t see any provision for PayPal or any other cryptocurrency.
• Shares close at $1 or $0. Nice round numbers eh?
  • Events have a “deadline” and that’s when it goes to $1 or $0. Suppose the event is “Will Trump take a shit in the Whitehouse on October 31st?” This will be resolved at a pre-determined moment and the market closed toot sweet. “At 12:01 AM, Robert Muller, who has been monitoring the can for 24 consecutive hours has reported ‘Trump dropped a load at 8:06 am and a followup load at 3:54 pm though he postulates the Russians were involved in the latter. Thus the market closes at $1 for yes.” If you’ve got a share of Yes it turns into a dollar in your account; minus 10% of the profit between your purchase price and a buck. If you’ve got a No, you get nothing. If you’re Muller you spend all day with tweezers picking at it looking for Russia. (Forgive the editorializing.)
  • Some events resolve with “Yes” or “No”. Other markets have multiple outcomes and you buy one (or more) possible outcomes. For example; “Who will be Trump’s next nominee for Supreme court?” You might buy a share of “Satan” for $0.12 and someone else might buy a share of highly unlikely “Rosie ODonnel” for $0.01 hoping for a high payoff. Etc… If the real answer is “Fred Flintstone” Both “Satan” and “Rosie” shares go to zero.
  • There’s also a market for who’ll be the first to leave the Supreme Court. This is another good example of a multiple outcome market without a known resolution date.
    •  If nobody else quit or dies and it takes 5 years before the Grim Reaper finally takes out Ruth Bader Ginsberg in a knife fight on her 90th birthday (give her credit, Ginsberg is damn well gonna’ rage at the dying of the light) then the market has been active all that time.
  • Shares go up and down in value from inception to resolution. Assuming you find a wiling buyer / seller, you can buy in or bail out anytime you want. That’s the point of a market.

Now some details for the sharks out there. You know who you are, the ones that nobody would play Monopoly with even when you were nine…. yeah I’m talking to you.

• Max buy in is $850 per market. This is a hard rule.
  • It’s based on price at purchase. Suppose you put in $0.20 a share of Clarence Thomas being the next SCOTUS Justice to step down. You wanna’ go all in because you’re sure Ginsberg is unkillable. You can buy 4250 shares at $0.20 and you’re all in at $850.
  • Suppose some hippie throws a brick at Kavinaugh and misses but knocks Thomas cold. He’s in the hospital and nobody’s saying anything. Shares of “Thomas is out” are going for $0.80 because everyone’s expecting a dirt nap. Your shares are now worth $3,400! You can’t buy any more shares. Sorry.
  • You can bail out now. You’ll eat a $255 fee on your profits and  put another $3,145 in your account.
  • Suppose Thomas walks out of the hospital, high fives the shocked press, strips his shirt off and does 6 pull ups on live TV. The share price for “Thomas is out” drops to $0.10. You notice Ginsberg sidling up with a shiv in her hand and a wild look in her eye. Thomas is doing jumping jacks to the theme from Rocky. Dude’s gonna’ take a dirt nap real soon! You wanna buy more “Thomas is out”! Tough shit. You bought in at $0.20 and that’s still your “buy in” price and you’re still limited to $850.
    • I don’t know if you can cash out, take your losses, and then re-buy in at the lower price. You’ll have to investigate yourself. Do it fast! Ginsberg is pulling a flamethrower out of her purse and Thomas is choking on a cherry pit.
  • Suppose you’re Elon Musk and want to blow a market one way or the other? I can’t tell yet but it seems trading is light enough (low volume) that a few “whales” could move the needle on some markets.
    • What’s the upper limit in shares? I’m not sure there is an upper limit in shares. I suppose mathematically 85000 shares at $0.01 a share is max per buyer.
    • There appears to be a hard limit of 5000 investors in each market. This might matter or it might not.
      • If 3,000 people were in the SCOTUS Deadpool and 5,000 random nerds see Ginsberg with a rocket launcher aimed at Thomas on live TV… only the first 2,000 of those new investors that stampede the site will get a buy. They’ll count as “investor” whether they buy one share on the “Thomas is toast” theory or hundreds on the counter proposition that “Ginsberg is walking dead”. An investor is an investor weather he focused on the rocket launcher or the dude with a robe carrying a scythe that was approaching Ginsberg.
      • At least that’s how I interpret the limit.
• You lose 5% when you take your money out of the system. This is regardless of any profit or loss. Keep that in mind. Like all betting (and most investment) you lose the minute you participate. Drop $100 in the system and it’ll read $100 in your account but you’ll only get $95 back even if you never bet on anything.

One last question: What is the “trader level” on my account?

• Every trader starts off as a Novice. Sell ten shares for a profit to become a Prognosticator. The other levels are Diviner, Soothsayer, Fortune Teller, Prophet and Oracle.

What this means to me is that they’re trying to appeal to social media freaks. I can’t see how it matters in any possible real world situation.

I grudgingly accept one exception. Every market has a forum with chatter… that I ignore. Suppose you want to fuck with people? You buy a gazillion shares of something that’s pretty sure. Say you spend $98 to buy 100 shares at $0.98 each for “Will the sun shine tomorrow?” When Armageddon doesn’t happen it closes at $1. You “earn” $2 which is $1.80 after the 10% fee. You risked $98 and earned $1.80 for a profit of 1.8%. Meh.

However, you made a profit on 100 shares and your trader level is elevated to “Krugman”. (I’m joking here, Krugman has never been right about anything as far as I can tell.)

Then you pick a market, buy in, and then blather all over the forum how space rays from your toaster explain everything. People who read the forum see your high rating, (Oracle?) and believe your bullshit. Not realizing you were betting counter to your posts they all buy in, do what you recommend, and then you fleece their ass like the vicious capitalist honey badger you are.

If people pay attention to trader ratings and if they listen to forums and if they’re dumb sheep, this might work. It might not be moral but I’m not thinking it’s illegal. (YMMV.) It’s the “pump and dump” gambit applied to a forum that may have gullible snowflakes. I’m too fuckin’ lazy for such things but y’all are welcome to have at it. Good luck. Tell ’em Curmudgeon sent ya’.

Last comments. This is a toy for fun. I don’t advocate serious gambling any more than I advocate drinking a full bottle of tequila among strangers.

I am finding it fun to watch though. I’ve got $20 in it now and I’ve gotten a “case of beer and a pizza” worth fun out of it.

I like it as a fabulous reality check. Whenever NPR screeches “Blue Wave Enough To Kill The Tidy Bowl Man” and/or Reason Magazine predicts “Trump Will Literally Vaporize Nancy Pelosi With The Power of His Awesomeness” I check the markets. As far as I can tell they nudge to and fro a penny or two… indicating to me that it’s all bullshit. Clearly, nobody’s putting real money on their dumbass ideas. This tells me a lot.

Incidentally, when someone invades my world with “Russia, Russia, Russia, this time we’ll impeach Orange Hitler for sure”, I eagerly tell them all about that very market on PredictIt. I urge them to cash in on their knowledge. “Dude, you’re on to something! I see it now. It’s so obvious! You should make a bet with real money so you can buy a jet ski with the proceeds!” Funny thing, nobody’s done it. Almost like they’re saying words that even they don’t believe.

Incidentally, I made a risky bet at $0.35 a share. Almost two beers worth of money. (I’m a low stakes player y’all!) On a yes/no market it’s a longshot. I was lured in by the chance at a 135% payoff if it goes to $1. Was I wise? Will I crow like a fuckin’ rooster if I “win”. Who knows.

It’s foolish to play with real money but people who won’t put up real money are just blowing smoke out of their ass. Someone help me with the conundrum in the comments.

A.C.

The future documentary Idiocracy has a scene where an average person tries to solve a problem in a room full of idiots. It’s one of the best scenes in modern cinema!

We’ve all experienced this. One side is trying to suss out rational solutions to an approachable problem. The other side isn’t necessarily opposed to a solution but they’re not helping. They keep circling back to a small list of slogans or factoids which lacks the depth to help. Even if they have the best of intentions it’s pointless.

It doesn’t have to be about politics. It’s common for members of Curmudgeon Compound to encounter folks where the situation hits the wall and we just have to ride it out. Among ourselves we mutter “plants crave electrolytes” and everyone understands.

“What happened to the anchovies? There are three of us and we agreed to get anchovies on one third of the pizza.”

“The pizza guy couldn’t do 1/3 he could only do half.”

“But he’s right there behind the window! I can see him putting toppings on the…”

“Plants crave electrolytes.”

“Yeah, I get it. Fractions.”

“Sorry man.”

It’s not that you hate the person you’re dealing with, it’s not that they’re deliberately trying to mess up your pizza, it’s just that they’ve hit a cognitive wall. You have to let it go. It’s probably been that way since the dawn of time.

Enter the meme of the NPC.

NPC, as all nerds know, means “non-player character”. In a video game it’s often a character programmed to give one of a handful of responses. NPCs are only slightly more interesting/useful than the scenery. Unlike players, they’re not a full participant in or driver of events. Ideally, an NPC moves the game along but, since the NPC only has a few responses, it’s going to be utterly useless for anything but the simplest situation. If you have to deal with an NPC more that the bare minimum it gets frustrating.

Player: “I need a spell of healing immediately!”

NPC: “There’s a legend of dragon’s gold to the north. I’d get it myself but I took an arrow to the knee.”

Player: “I just shoved a pork roast in your ear.”

NPC: “There’s a legend of dragon’s gold to the north. I’d get it myself but I took an arrow to the knee.”

See the pattern?

The NPC meme was fermenting in some vat of troll until the last week or so when it lurched into the national consciousness as a crudely drawn, grey, blank faced entity. The ultimate nothing. Neither angry, nor sad. Simply a thing that will do what it has been programmed to do.

“Meh.” Says the Curmudgeon. It meant nothing to me.

Then NPC was applied to the social justice warrior (SJW). The wokest of the woke, SJWs do indeed move, act, and speak with a hive mind uniformity that many of us deplorables find disturbing. Speaking for myself, I find it terrifying. A flock of birds or a school of fish, all moving in unison may be beautiful, but a thousand shrieking snowflakes wearing identical vagino-symbolic hats and bawling that Trump is literally Hitler is just… yuck.

For example, I wasn’t happy about the Christmas Eve passage of Obamacare, but I didn’t put a dildo on my head and stomp around the Lincoln Memorial shouting that Obama was literally Stalin. Who would think that way?

However, it’s not all about politics. It’s about uniformity. Get a thousand green clad Green Bay Packers fans in one space and I’m looking for the door faster than you can say “cheap beer in a can”.

Also, I pay attention to the degree to which uniformity is enforced. In Sturgis, where the religion is Harley and the the uniform is a black t-shirt, I wore blue and rode a Honda. Everyone was as nice as peaches to me. Good crowd really. (I wouldn’t try the same experiment with a Vikings shirt on a day the Packers lose.)

Anyway, the NPC memes arrived and I found them somewhere between “no shit Sherlock” and mildly amusing. Big yawn from me.

Surprisingly (to me), NPC caused SJWs to freak out. (I’m assuming there are things that don’t make SJWs freak out.)

How interesting! Direct hit to the inflated ego. As they say, you know you’re over the target when you start taking flak.

Apparently, the NPC meme poleaxed the self-esteem folks who enjoy gathering in big groups to act identically; which apparently is nothing like the NPC meme and a clear demonstration of their thoughtful exercise of free will. GO PACKERS!

As always happens with snowflake butthurt, folks posting NPC memes were declared  racist, violent, misogynist, capitalist pig dog, poopy heads… and probably literally Hitler. Then, of course, came the banning.

Voltaire said: “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.”  Last I heard some 1500 Twitter accounts were toast. So there you have it. Deplorables are meanies and SJWs spoke truth to power by using their power. Shutting down a wad of Twitter accounts wasn’t censorship because it’s not censorship when SJWs do it. Etc.

I have no dog in this fight; I don’t have a Twitter account and SWJs have been hurling insults at me so long I hardly notice. Each new insult (“all white males are racist dickheads”, “math is sexist”, etc…) is just another drop in the ocean of insults that folks like me wade through daily.

However, I’ve started to love the NPC meme. Like all humor, it grows from a seed of truth. I see humor as more important every day. Never underestimate the power of laughter to keep the vainglorious in check.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going squirrel hunting. Hopefully, the NPC meme will keep growing in my absence.

Some time ago I was getting pissed off with politics. (Ha ha ha… getting…  like it’s a new thing.)

Everything seems so predictable. Everyone plays their assigned part like friggin’ marionettes. Why? I find it inexplicable they’d subvert their own will like that. Some of the denser marionettes get violent in the streets and weep. To what ends? Some of the more accomplished puppetmasters make a good living sucking money and farming votes within the stirred emotions of the populace. A pox on them all.

Then it occurred to me; “How do I know this?”. It looks like a bunch of nincompoops having tantrums but maybe I’m just as biased and stupid? How am I to know if I’m really reading the winds? Perhaps I’m just freebasing the Dunning–Kruger effect like the rest of the sheep?

So I made an account on PredictIt and offhandedly dropped a ten spot on a few markets. PredictIt is a “prediction market”. The blurb says “PredictIt is run by Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, a not-for-profit university, for educational purposes”.

For non-nerds who don’t bathe in math, this means a betting pool where people wager on various political outcomes. You put real money (albeit tiny amounts) down and see what happens. There are many such markets. Some may be better. I decided not to go too far down the rabbit hole seeking the ideal and selected PredictIt more or less at random.

In theory, a market where people risk real money (their own money!) taps into the wisdom of crowds. There have been many examples of markets sussing the truth out of a mountain of bullshit toot sweet. Also, I’m happy with small numbers. If you risk $10 and make 20% profit you’re learning just as much as if you risk $5,000 and make a 20% profit.

Overall, I’m not so sure about PredictIt. It’s just a toy. I risked a ten spot. Hardly putting my neck out there. Also, it’s not a great market. The fees are too high to really make money unless you call big swings. (You pay 10% of profits and 5% at withdrawal. Shares have a max payout at $1 and max loss is the full buck on a share. You can buy all the shares you want but you’re limited to $850 in bets… which is real money to me! There are forums where people chatter but I don’t read them.)

My big complaint is the limited volatility. It’s easier to make money on bets when people stampede to and fro like lemmings. (Anyone recognize a populace that’s acting like that?)

But for all it’s faults it’s OK for what I wanted. I was just looking to self detect the stalking shadow of Dunning-Kruger. Also I’m trying to keep the stupid at bay and not pick up another “job”. Most of the markets bore me and I deliberately spent little time pondering details. I’m simply not steeped in the system enough to ponder the details of Angela Merkel’s daily activities or the number of Tweets the Orange Menace issues per day. (Yes, you can bet on “tweet count”. God only knows why you’d care, but it takes all types.)

That said, I dumped a few bucks on a few markets and subsequently ignored them. The Kavinaugh crapfest came and went. I meant to buy in on a few Kavinaugh markets but was busy. Otherwise I didn’t monitor it. Now I return and I’m up about 4%. No, 4% doesn’t mean I’m the Oracle at Delphi, but then again it’s 4% in just about 2 months. It’s not too shabby for paying little attention. I mildly wish I’d ponied up a bit more than $10 but such is the allure of gambling… which I intend to restrain.

If you’re disturbed by politics, or wish to understand just what the hell is going on, or want to “prove” you’re smarter than the average bear, try a bet. Put your money on the line (even a few pennies) and watch what happens. If you’re a dumbass and lose your shirt (or just a few pennies) it’ll teach humility. If you make good calls and profit (even just a few pennies) you’ll have the satisfaction of testing your theories. In a perfect world, the freaks protesting in the streets would do the same; spend their time testing theories rather than wearing costumes and acting like jackasses. It might do ’em some good. Then again, deep thought and street theater are opposites. I can wish though; if the prediction markets flood with hive mind freaks, I could see myself making some bigger bets and cleaning up.

Stay sane y’all.

At Curmudgeon Compound all hell has broken loose. Well actually it’s done breaking loose. Phase 1 has come and gone.

Now I’m busily establishing what euphemizers call a “new normal”. It might be a better normal than once was, so no regrets. (Also, if I say “euphemizers” is a word then on my blog it Goddamn well is an accepted word. YMMV if you try it on Scrabble.)

At the moment I’m not going to elaborate; OPSEC and privacy y’all… learn it, live it, love it. All I’ll say for now is that my blogging may not be up to its usual craptacular level for several weeks. I’m sure you’ll forgive me.

This unexpected event, coming in what has been an eventful year, washed over me like a tide. It could have been worse. At least it arrived definitively. There was no pussyfooting around. It was a real life IMAX, Technicolor, 5 channel surround sound, Smell-O-Vision, 3D, turn the dial to eleven, moment in time. Perhaps a younger, more high strung, Curmudgeon would’ve freaked out and dropped the ball; followed it up with an epic bloggable rant… possibly involving talking squirrels and time travel. Except I’ve changed. It wasn’t that big of a deal.

Or rather, big deal or not, I accepted it as simply an opportunity to “do the right thing”. Sometimes you know what you must do. Ideally, you have the maturity to follow through. We all hope to rise to such occasions but one never knows until they find out. This doesn’t mean I relish the need for stoics but it does mean I’m happy I can get things done when they need doing.

I just sorta’ rode it out and handled what needed handling and ignored what could be ignored and so forth. Chalk it up to luck or wisdom, but in the short term at least it hasn’t exceed the stored resources of Curmudgeon Compound or me (though I did pick up a wicked head cold).

This is where “survivalist” meets “real world” and that’s why I’m writing. Survivalism helps with the little stuff too. (You’re welcome to use the alternative term “prepper” if you want to sound PC and avoid scaring the squares. I for one find it ball-less and tepid. I’ll always prefer the grizzled, old school term. It bothers me that there’s a chickenshit zeitgeist that society is  turned off by the ideal of “surviving”!)

I’m not a “stack ammo until you crush the floorboards” kind of guy but I’m somewhere on a spectrum that includes “boy scout” and “homesteader”. Dutifully, I’d “kept my powder dry” for unforeseen eventualities. In my eyes, most people should do so. In reality few do. I’m an outlier. As a reader of my blog you probably are too.

Change is never like you imagine. For one it’s not the Jerry Bruckheimer, CGI laden, awesome-fest we fixate upon. It wasn’t a Russkie tank charging over the horizon. It wasn’t an extinction level, EMP event, zombie, sharknado. It’ll never make the papers. It was a small issue for a small personal world… and therefore supremely important.

Folks sneer at preparedness like it’s all Bert Gummer tactcool bullshit. Yet statistics hint that most of the nation can barely lift a sack of flour and tarry in the red zone a couple paychecks from perdition. If you aim to be tougher than nails and live in an impenetrable bunker, you can fall far short and still have what it takes to handle unexpected difficulties.

I’m most grateful to have the opportunity to do what needed doing, and the resources to follow up on intentions. Not the least of which is the support of Mrs. Curmudgeon, adequate health, and a solid heart.

I know this all means very little. I’ve written too generally to get at the heart of things. But not everything is Facebook fodder and perhaps part of riding out storms is to keep shit to yourself. We all face challenges. Adversity doesn’t make us special, it’s what we do with it that matters. Best of luck y’all. It’s been a rough year but I’m still swimming strong. I hope everyone else is too.

Some shit just went down. I won’t elaborate at the moment but I’m sure it’ll all work out in the end. In the meantime, I’m busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest. In lieu of content, I’ll leave you with a trippy video of Carl Sagan.

Update: A spam comment got through my perimeter. Before hitting vaporize (“delete” isn’t enough!) I enjoyed the message:

“Thanks for some other magnificent post. Where else could anyone get that type of information in such an ideal means of writing?”

Flattery over the magnificence of Sagan rattling off large numbers? Spam is the koan of the 21st century!

No shit, there I was…

I was contemplating the possibility that my homemade mouse trap* was catching rodents in a series that mimics the Fibonacci sequence when I got an e-mail.  “Would you like to win free…”

Trashed it. I’m a busy man with a mouse problem. Who’s got time to read e-mails?

Then, when I was writing a post about my irrational emotional attachment to a broken 30 year old alarm clock another e-mail arrived. “Dude, are you serious? Don’t you want free…”

Trashed it! When I’m pondering dead appliances I like focus. Who’s got time to read e-mails? (I might be paraphrasing a bit, I’m pretty sure it didn’t start with “Dude”.)

Later, I was sorting through my e-mail trash folder looking for an accidentally deleted comment about capacitors when I bumped into those two messages. This time I noticed the magic word. Ammunition.

I took all the papers on my desk and shoved them to the floor. I closed all open tabs on my computer. I set down my coffee mug.

I addressed the computer. (Yes, I talk to my computer. Don’t judge me. You do too.)

“Computer, you have my full attention.”

Ammunition. It’s what’s for dinner.**

If you subscribe to their blog you automatically get entered into a competition to win free ammo for a year. The deadline to enter is October 31st, 2018. Did I mention ammunition? Did I mention free?

Because they’re giving away free ammunition. For a year.

Boxes and boxes of ammunition. Shiny happy ammunition. For the very excellent price of free.

Now you might think I’m sharing this because I’m such a nice guy. Hell no! Odds of winning are based on the number of entries and if I were in your shoes I’d enter first and then launch the mother of all DOS attacks to keep other entries out. [Note: My dog just interrupted to point out that I’m joking and no, you should not electronically attack anyone. In fact, you should sing songs and erect statues in honor of sainted heroic people who give Curmudgeons ammunition.]***

In the interest of transparency I’ll mention that I’ve been bribed and I’m damn happy about it. Wideners tossed me a bone to advertise to my audience. I don’t feel one bit guilty because the bribe was also free ammunition and that means ammunition that’s free.

I just love when those two words are in the same sentence.

Wideners is now my main pusher supplier. As far as I’m concerned, the calendar is basically broken into awesome days when I buy ammunition and sadder days when I wanted to buy ammunition but couldn’t. So I’m more than happy to advertise online ammo sales. (Also the ammunition selection near my homestead sucks. I have to reload or buy online. Lets hear it for internet commerce!)

Click over there and subscribe to their blog. It may not have stories about squirrels and disco but it might win ya’ some ammo. What’s to lose?

Good luck.

A.C.

*My homemade mousetrap is called Curmudgeon’s Pit of Doom and works like something Edgar Allen Poe would invent. Which is cool with me. When Curmudgeons deal with mice they don’t mess around with “catch and release” traps.

** It’s not what’s for dinner but it is how you catch what’s for dinner. Plus every time I hear that phrase I think of steak so I like to say it often.

*** My dog interrupted again to point out that it never said anything about songs and statues, but I distracted it with a treat and hit “publish”.

[This post may not be up to my normal standards but what the hell, who has standards these days? I dashed it out in one draft as a moment of non-politics.]

When I was a teenager I had a very good birthday. Kids like birthdays but this was an exceptionally good one. Nothing earth shattering, I didn’t win the lottery or anything. It just was a happy day surrounded by people I love, who were all happy too. I don’t remember if I had cake but I still remember the people. When you have a good day it’s important to remember it.

People were the point of that day. But time passes and I cling to a physical reminder. A present from my folks. A clock. I’d asked for a radio alarm clock. (Is that what they’re called? You know what I’m talking about.) Also one random day long before my birthday I’d offhandedly mentioned “what would be best is a radio alarm clock that starts out quiet and then gets loud gradually”.

That seems simple now. At the time they didn’t exist. It was just an idea I had. I might as well have said it would be cool if my bicycle floated on unicorn farts or asked for high school to be cancelled for the month.

Radio alarm clocks at the time were primitive. Some were still clocks with bells on them. Most had those flappy fake digital readouts I despise. Digital displays existed but were “high end”. A “snooze button” was a “feature” on only some of alarm clocks. (Millennials who’ve never seen a universe without a smart phone’s “alarm” app might need to visit a museum to investigate.)

Yet, inexplicably, my mother found this thing that didn’t exist and gave it to me for my birthday. A radio alarm clock with the never before seen “grad-u-wake” technology. Woah!

It was shiny and glossy and probably cost a bit more than my folks would’ve wanted to pay. But it was exactly what I wanted so they went for it. Also the reason I wanted it was to get to school and work on time and who can fault a kid for that? To me, the radio looked very adult. It reeked of responsibility, paid shift work, and the combined freedom/obligation that comes after youth.

I loved it and it was very useful. I’ve carried that damn thing wherever I’ve gone. Dozens of addresses. Different towns, different states. If I lived in a situation with electricity (which isn’t always a given) I had that alarm.

Eventually it aged. Mrs. Curmudgeon and I replaced it with newer better radio alarm clocks. Several in fact. (I also had to replace my beloved duck telephone. I still miss it too. I get attached to the weirdest things.)

I keep the old radio. It moved around for a few years until it found a home in my office.

A few times the bulb has burned out. Each time I’ve replaced the bulb. Otherwise it keeps on chugging. It’s over three decades old. Can you stay that of many appliances in your house.

Unfortunately, the thing is plum wore out. The radio is an analog dial that doesn’t get great reception and sometimes the volume knob goes wonky. Then over the last few months the clock started flaking out. Gradually at first and now completely, it has become a clock that can’t keep time.

I didn’t know it was possible to have a digital clock that couldn’t keep time. How could that even work? I’m not talking a minor systematic discrepancy either. It really can’t keep time. It loses anywhere from one to three hours every 24 hours. Not on a set pattern either. I think sometimes it gains time. WTF? Nor is this a reset issue. When the clock loses power it defaults to “blinking 12:00” and doesn’t increment. That would be a lot easier to understand.

I’m mystified and amused that it failed in a way I didn’t know a device of that type could fail. You go plucky clock!

So now have, for the second time, it’s something that I never though could exist: it’s a clock that’s not even right twice a day.

Impressive? I’m not sure. But it is unique.

Eventually I’ll toss the poor thing. Like the Mars Pathfinder, its done more than anyone could ask of it. Time for an appliance funeral.

Yet, so far I haven’t brought myself to do it. My clock radio alarm that’s now a shitty radio, mysteriously unreliable clock, and unnecessary (in my office) alarm is like an old friend. If I had time to kill I’d jam a Raspberry Pi in there and make it into something new. But I’m busy and it’ll never happen.

I wonder how long I’ll cling to this old piece of junk. If the clock knows, it’s not telling.

A month ago I wrote three uncreatively named posts. (Uncreative is a word if I say it is!).

In part 0 I discussed that there is such a thing as mass hysteria.  I wrote up a fun little time travel trip to the Salem Witch Hunts juxtaposed with Seattle in the middle of this spring’s “Russia Russia Russia” frenzy.

In Part 1 I tried to have a little empathy. Folks who are in turmoil are… in turmoil. It must suck.

Finally in part 2 I told my personal experience of the 1980’s when Americans, completely irrationally, thought satanic cults were running amok. (No shit, that’s a real thing that happened. I can look people in the eye and say “I remember when Americans thought satanic cults were a serious threat”. Beware that you may someday struggle to explain 2018 to a different generation. Good luck.)

Mass Hysteria: Part 0:

Locals: “We’re surrounded by racists. Protest their ass!”

Curmudgeon: “Anyone care to elaborate?”

Locals: “Trump. Trump is everywhere. He’s seriously screwing up our lives! Any minute now he’s going to herd us onto cattle cars and ship us somewhere terrible!”

Curmudgeon: (Looking around nervously.) “Somewhere terrible? A concentration camp?”

Locals: “Worse! Kansas!”

Mass Hysteria: Part 1

It’s OK to dislike the President but if you’re acting like he’s going to personally rape your cat you’ve lost perspective. People who will never be in the same room (and only rarely in the same state) as Trump act like he’s riffling through their garbage cans at night. The reaction is not justified by real world conditions.

Mass Hysteria: Part 2

I shared my skepticism to no avail. “You seriously think nimrods are forming covens to sacrifice goats and stuff? Have you seen them with your own eyes? Why am I not invited? Aren’t goats expensive? Where are they getting them? Is there a goat farm to ask about this?” My teachers were like “Shut up youthful Curmudgeon, you don’t know shit.”

That was a month ago. At least for now the “Russia Russia Russia” panic is forgotten. (How quickly old panics are replaced by new.)

Now everyone is going ape over the new panic. Congressional “advise and consent” of a Supreme Court nominee, which for the first 150 years of our nation, was as boring as watching paint dry is now political Thunderdome. Roughly half of the Citizenry and roughly the same portion of Congress is losing sleep over unsubstantiated accusations of something that happened 36 years ago.

I tired to write about Cycles. “This is Clarence Thomas / Anita Hill. We’ve seen this movie before. It’s gonna be OK.” I don’t think I got much traction.

This morning I stumbled across 5 Signs You’re In The Midst Of A Moral Panic. (Hat tip to Maggie’s Farm.) The author discusses; the Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s, the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, and right now. I’m not the only one that sees it.

I encourage everyone to read the article. He’s done a good job discussing things we now know know to be false but at one time were widely (and incorrectly) accepted. He uses my favorite example of the Stanic panic of the 1980’s and the classic Salem Witch Hunts, but he also mentions the Duke Lacrosse case and the Rolling Stone rape hoax. (All of the above examples were thoroughly examined and found to be false.)

The author comes up with a list of things to look for during a “moral panic”:

1. Due Process Goes Out The Window

We’re now told, quite firmly, that due process keeps sexual assault victims from coming forward. Having to tell their story multiple times, having to face their accuser, having to provide evidence of their claims, being questioned about inconsistencies or fallacies — all these things are now considered harmful, but only for those making sexual assault accusations. Accusers of other crimes are still seen as capable of surviving the legal system.

2. “Believe The Victim”

This may be the biggest tell of a moral panic. An accusation, we’re told, is sufficient enough. With due process being considered anathema to victims, accusations are all the evidence needed.

3. Misleading And Faulty Statistics

Another social panic, this one about child abductions and occurred around the same time as the Satanic Panic, used a grossly exaggerated figure to suggest children across the country were in danger of being kidnapped. The media and others claimed 50,000 children were abducted a year, when the actual number was around 600 (still frightening, but far from 50,000).

4. Evidence, Schmevidence

As due process goes out the window, so does the need for evidence. During these times of mass hysteria, things that would otherwise be considered evidence that a crime was not committed or that an accuser is lying in any other situation are dismissed as evidence of the crime itself.

5. Pseudo-Scientific Theories About Memory Reign Supreme

A large volume of studies — spanning decades — consistently show that our memories are not a reliable source of information, and can be corrupted and distorted incredibly easily. Witnesses to traumatic events — such as those who witness a shooting or other horrific crime — are often wrong about what they saw. Thousands are wrongfully convicted based on incorrect eyewitness identifications.