Posts from — December 2019

The Far Side is officially on the web. Gary Larson is putting his cartoons out there for people view.

The BBC has posted a 9-hour loop of a cat riding a Roomba in front of a Christmas tree on YouTube.

Oh, yes, the 45th Resident of the White House has become the third occupant of the property to be impeached by the House of Representatives.

Update: the Gävlebocken is still standing tall in Castle Square.

“Boldly going

where no man has gone before.”

The Wright Brothers make the first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

“If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell.” ― Carl Sandburg

The Feds and all the states have laws making misfeasance, malfeasance, and/or nonfeasance by public servants a crime. [for normal people: doing something you are authorized to do for a corrupt reason; doing something under ‘color of office’ that you are not authorized to do; and/or not doing something you are required to do]. All the Republicans have for a strategy is pounding the table and yelling…

This is Saint Lucia’s Day for Scandinavians.

It features special treats that are handed out by a girl wearing a crown of candles, Lucia coming from the Latin for light, LUX.

Saint Lucia was an early Christian martyr from Syracuse on Sicily, but her official feast day, December 13, fit perfectly with the local pagan celebration of the Lussi on December 13, which was the Winter Solstice at the time. Yep, more cover to continue the fun mid-winter celebrations by pretending they are associated with Christianity to get the Church off everyone’s case.

Yes, it’s Friday the 13^th again. The 13^th falls on a Friday more than any other day of the week, so get over it. It’s only valid in in English and Portuguese speaking countries, so go visit a Spanish-speaking neighborhood for the day.

If you want to blame someone, it’s the calendar of Pope Gregory XIII that created this imbalance. [He obviously didn’t have a problem with the number on any day.]

For the third time in 13 years my host went down. Not only did they go down but their alert system failed due to some problems with their cellphone provider, meaning their automatic system did not alert them to a problem and they, therefore, couldn’t alert the affected accounts, including me.

Meantime, the server failure cause an error message to be sent to WordPress, who did contact me. Unfortunately the WordPress error led to my wasting time trying to track down a problem with the blog that didn’t exist.

To make things a bit more confusing my personal website, hosted by the same company, was still working. It was some time before my host updated their status page and everything finally made sense. My personal website is rather static and is on a different server that the dynamic blog site.

Throw in the standard process of patching all of the computers this week, and replacing a two-pole circuit breaker in one of the apartments, and my useful computer time has been severely limited.

And while I’ve been typing WordPress has issued another update to their software…

By now it is obvious that the current Resident is not qualified for any job in government service or any management position. Now it is clear that he isn’t qualified to be a property manager or plumber: Trump claims Americans have to flush the toilet ’10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once’.

He claims that LED lights, not his makeup, make him look orange. If he would ask a lighting specialist he would discover that LED lights come in different shades of white from “daylight” to “soft white”.

As for the low flow faucets & shower heads and new toilets, what you notice is a reduction in your water bill. If you have to flush twice, you’re probably using too much toilet paper or were really full of it.

After experiencing the 1980s drought in San Diego, I have and use all of the devices. It is rather obvious the Trumplethinskin gets his opinions from the drunk at the end of the bar or Faux News.

The seventy-eighth anniversary of “a date which will live in infamy…”

The official US Navy site on the Pearl Harbor attack.

The memorial service aboard NAS Pensacola may be affected by the shooting.

… and how can Santa Claus visit every house, go down chimneys, leave toys, all over the world in one night?

One of the answers is found on European Christmas trees.

Read about Finland’s version of the Julbock, Joulupukki.

Note: Don’t try this at home unless you have the kidneys of a reindeer. It also explains why gnomes are so cheerful.

Yes, it is the day that kindly old Saint Nicholas fills the footware of good little girls and boys with treats [or his assistants beat the evil out of bad children, depending on the local customs – they didn’t just leave the sticks – in some places they use them.] Don’t forget the carrot if he rides a horse in your area.

He is the patron saint of Russian merchants and pawnbrokers (three gold balls are one of the symbols associated with him).

Happy NODWISH Greetings

As a service to my readers I have compiled a list of useful terms for our modern global village.

It is time to wish family and friends: [select one]

Happy NODWISH
Merry Solstice
Happy Holiday
Happy Hanukkah
Happy Kwanzaa
Happy Hogwatch
Merry Christmas
С Рождеством Христовым
성탄 축하
Vrolijk Kerstfeest
Nadolig Llawen
Fröhliche Weihnachten
Joyeux Noël
Buon Natale
Feliz Navidad
God Jul
Rauhallista Joulua
Happy Christmas
Happy Holidays

[Read more →]

Today is the First Sunday of Advent which means you should have made your Christmas Pudding and Why Now? is pleased to present the Fifty-third version of the Gävlebocken, The biggest Christmas Goat in the world [now on Twitter @Gavlebocken].

From Steve Bates of Yellow Doggerel Something in the comments from 2006:

Why build a giant goat of straw,
Which most of us would scarcely note?
Some, though, defy the very law,
To vandalize the Gävle Goat.

In some years, they used wayward cars;
In others, flaming arrows smote.
This year’s survives, although with scars…
A fact that gets some people’s goat.

A webcam and some watchful eyes,
A flame-retardant second coat,
Should save it… unless Dubya spies
The thing, and claims it’s his pet goat!

– SB the YSS