Must Be AI

I resist click bait, if for no other reason than that it wastes time. But occasionally I go for it, and then immediately remember why I avoid it. Clickbait wastes time and is often plain wrong.

This morning I clicked on The Most Beautiful Unknown Small Towns in Michigan which Michiganders don't know. The first was Saugatuck. Well, perhaps it fits. I only know it marginally, as somewhere near Lake Michigan. Second was Frankenmuth.

Oh, come on. If you're from Michigan and don't know Frankenmuth, well, you're not really from Michigan.

I didn't even bother checking the rest of the list. Just avoid clickbait folks.

The trouble with magic and time travel

I watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone over the weekend not because I was encamped at home with nothing better to do but because my son had the Rifftrax of it and we figured it would be fun. Quite bluntly, I cannot imagine myself watching it without the riffs. Nothing personal, Potter fans.

Anyway, it reminded me of why I can't take stories about magic (or time travel) seriously if they're supposed to be serious movies. They're both impossible (time travel and magic) and invite all sorts of inconsistency.

During one scene in the aforementioned movie a kid clearly breaks his arm. The instructing wizard stops the lesson to take the unfortunate boy to the infirmary. That's all well and good, and of course necessary and proper in the real world. But in that world of magic all I could think was, why are you making this kid endure all that misery? Why don't you just wave your wand and heal his injury?

Ditto time travel. If taken at face value, either everything will always be in flux as folks gallivant about changing everything, or you should just be able to go fix the problem and be done with it. It's okay with comedy such as Back to the Future as you're not expected to take it seriously. But as a plot device in a drama it's really rather stupid.

Yes, yes, yes, suspend disbelief and enjoy the films on their own merit I will be told. I will even concede such movies might make passable entertainment. Still, the inconsistencies inherent in them will always bug me.

Rant (if this qualifies as one) over.

Trump Went Too Far This Time

We. as individuals and within our various groups, need to self police. We need to examine what we say and do and to explain, expand upon, and apologize as necessary for our words and deeds. And we cannot be afraid to censure our friends when they cross a line. Perhaps especially so then. President Trump merits censure by tweeting he was glad Robert Mueller had died. 

We should never, ever, under any circumstances revel in a person's death. What they need at that time are prayers, charity, consideration for their souls, and concern for the suffering of their families left behind. Stating we're glad they're dead is never justifiable. 

I don't care that our opponents have acted similarly. The defense that it's just Trump being Trump is a dodge. It does not matter that our adversaries will, and they will, use our necessary self reflection against us. We are called to love everyone. That means wanting the good for them. That means prayers and charity upon death. Even before that, quite frankly, but particularly then. Full stop.

The President saying that he's happy a fellow human being has died is disgusting, reprehensible, and indefensible. We must say it. Out loud. And no matter what. 

Weeping for Lazarus

In today's Gospel in the Catholic lectionary, we hear the story of Lazarus raised from the dead. Lazarus was the brother of Martha and Mary, and Christ was personally close to them. 

While two days away preaching Christ was informed that Lazarus was very ill. By the time he reached Bethany where the three friends lived, Lazarus had been dead four days. As Christ approached the tomb, He wept.

That's rather peculiar, isn't it? In the moments before Our Lord was to pray to His Father for help, He wept. He was soon to command, "Lazarus, come out!" surely knowing he would, yet Jesus cried. But why should He?

Because he understood the evil of death better than we can. Christ understood it on a deeper, more profound level. He became man precisely to do that, to take on fully what it means to be human and to atone for evils such as death. He would eventually die for that, hung from a tree as the Apostles would say, to make a better life possible for you and me.

That's love. That's why we need to accept as our Savior, Christ Jesus.

Hold Thy Tongue Marty

As a general rule, it really is best to hold your tongue. But, hell, sometimes that can be hard.

I sent an order UPS to a customer. Okay, I sent my brother out with the package to UPS it to a customer, but potato, pa-tat-o. After he had left the old barn, and as they had prepaid, I sent an email explaining that the order was on its way and that I would be snail mailing a paid invoice later that day. That's a standard business practice, right?

The next day I received an email from said customer wondering why, as they received the parcel, there was not an invoice enclosed. They enquired, would I be sending one by the regular mail?

I might not have been quite so upset with the question except that they asked it in a reply to the original email informing them that a paid invoice was forthcoming in the regular mail. 

Bite. Thy. Tongue. Marty. 

I cannot tell you how badly I wanted to reply to the email by asking if they actually read their emails. I cannot tell you how seriously I considered a smarmy, snide response. Something along the lines of, 'What? You didn't get an invoice? I will overnight air one to you immediately!' or some such. But no, I calmly replied that one was already in the mail, and to let me know if they didn't get it soon. 

I'm easing my anger by writing this blog entry. But I'll bet you know the feelings I'm dealing with, eh?

Technology Which Festers

I get it. You get it. We all get it. The Internet follows us around. 

You order one thing - one thing - and the Internet thinks you need hundreds of it. Thousands. 

Yesterday I ordered a 23557 Clutch Casting for a Ridgid K-1500 mainline drain cleaning machine. I haven't needed one in years. The one I'm getting may be the only one I need for the next four or five. Yet the first thing which came up this morning on not one but two websites I frequent were ads for that part.

What particularly annoys me is not only the general uselessness of the ads, but that they didn't encourage me to buy another for purely economic reasons. Each happily informed me that I could get AN AUTHENTIC RIDGID 23557 CLUTCH CASTING FOR ONLY $173.99! But hell, the one I actually ordered was forty bucks less. If I need another anytime soon I'm going back to those guys.

But to give you, yes, YOU, the chance to satisfy your curiosity as to what I'm talking about and be smothered in ads for such a part, click here. Yes, it's for the more expensive one. I'm not telling you all my secrets. You'll buy the cheaper one and then overcharge me.

Organization Hurts

I have too much of a lazy streak, and I'm perfectly aware of it. Still, there are times where the cleaning bug hits. Or, more truthfully, forces my hand.

It's been incredibly busy at the old barn these last few weeks. For that I am truly thankful; it means the bills get paid and there's some left over to save and squander. I'm better at the latter than the former, although I am improving at putting money back, and even at avoiding impulse buys. At Meijer the other day I actually returned a baseball magazine to the shelf. Why read projections for the upcoming season which will almost certainly be wrong when I can read tons of baseball articles online, if not for free at least already paid for through internet and cell phone fees. 

But I digress.

As a consequence of the flush of work (heh, heh, flush, from a guy who sells drain snakes) the Shop has gotten very crowded. It reached the point where I was cautiously stepping over and around machines to get to my work spaces. I often had to move two to four units to get to the one I wanted to fix, then doing it again an hour later on the next repair. That won't do for the long haul. So I spent Saturday and Sunday organizing. 

I did a good job of it too, if I may say so myself. I created easy access to my tools and my main work areas. I could by the end of Sunday afternoon actually walk into what goes for my office and readily get to the shelves at the back of it, where I stock small parts and cutters. There were - try to wrap your head around this - aisles I could walk through from the front to the back of the old barn. It was still crowded. But getting from A to B was doable without risking accidental death or disfigurement.

Monday morning when I opened, around six AM to hit the work week running, the Shop was dark. I kill the lights at night, you see. As I reached into my pocket for my cell to use its flashlight function to illuminate my way to the fuse box (yes, the Shop still has fuses) I thought, "Marty, you don't need to do that. You created a path!" So I boldly went forth with no fear, not a care in the world...and knocked the wind out of me, striding smack into the handle of a drain machine which stuck out into the aisle. I sucker punched myself in the gut. Pride goeth before the fall indeed.