
#206
Oct. 8, 2022
Nothing interesting to say today, sorry, so mostly it’s links. There are some lovely pictures, though, and I’m working on a bus ride story that rocked me when it happened.
Words are work, so give me a few more days.

When the Mariners were behind 8-1 in the fifth inning of yesterday’s playoff game, I turned the radio off and walked into the kitchen to make a sandwich. Talked with my flatmate Robert for a few minutes, mostly about the game, and then I came back to my room and started watching a movie.
Half an hour later, Robert gently knocked on my door, because he knows I hate intrusions.”Yeah?” I shouted.
“Uh, Doug, you might want to turn your radio on again.” I turned my radio on again, and heard the last few innings of a remarkable 10-9 comeback win by the Mariners.
I’ve given up on most things in life, but baseball is still a blast sometimes.

Toast, man. I miss toast. The kitchen’s smoke alarm goes off when wanna-be toast is barely tanned, and the ceiling is so high nothing can reach the alarm to shut it off.
The alarm seems to be brand-sensitive, too. Expensive bread can be toasted to a rich brown without setting off the shrieks. Cheap bread, meaning the bread I buy, simply cannot be toasted without the alarm.
And I don’t even mind setting off the alarm during the day, annoying my three upstairs flatmates and generating complaints from the four flatmates below. Ain’t my fault if the smoke alarm cries wolf.
Thing is, toast is mostly my snack of choice when I wake up in the middle of the night, and as much as I enjoy having few friends, I am not setting off the alarm at 2AM to make enemies.
I’m thinking of buying a toaster for my room, just for insomniac snacking. There’s no smoke alarm in my room, which is illegal, I think, so I could have toast any time I want toast.

The early Captchas, where you had to type scrambled text, were bad enough, but I’ve especially hated the second generation Captchas, where you have to find the tractors, bicycles, bridges etc in a bunch of too small, too
dark photos.
After finding thousands of tractors, bicycles, and bridges, though, I’ve developed the habit of talking to myself while clicking the pictures. “OK, there’s a tractor, and there’s a tractor, and… I think that might be the third tractor.”
Sweet jeebers, I’m starting to enjoy the Captchas. It’s like playing a game from Highlights magazine.
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Christian preacher: “If God tells you to kill someone, yes, you should.”
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Want to hire a January 6 rioter? Now there’s a website for that.
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Starbucks is using the police as strikebreakers
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Microplastics found in human breast milk for the first time

One-word newscast, because it’s the same news every time…
Climate change isn’t ‘coming’, it’s underway. It’ll kill billions, and we’re not doing squat about it.
All cops are bastards, or they know who the bastard cops are and do nothing about it, which is the same thing.
• cops • cops • cops • cops • cops • cops • cops • cops • cops • cops
Republicans are the enemy of common sense, common decency, simple truth, and democracy.
• Republicans • Republicans • Republicans • Republicans • Republicans • Republicans • Republicans • Republicans • Republicans

Did JFK really eat the world’s largest tamale?
The Associated Press reported it weighed seventeen pounds.
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Here’s kind of a cool site that I hope burns in hell.
“Given a text prompt, Imagen Video generates high definition videos using a base video generation model and a sequence of interleaved spatial and temporal video super-resolution models,” or so they claim. There seems to be no way to access any of the videos, though, and the still images are small, and coded so as to be uncopyable except by screenshot.
Maybe I’ll come back when they’re willing to let people touch this technology.

How long has it been since the last apocalyptic volcanic eruption?
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Mr Doodle doodled his entire house, documenting the madness in stop motion
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I used to daydream about buying an island, and getting away from all the annoying people forever.
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Man-lifting kites that were used for aerial reconnaissance, 1900-1920
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♫♬ Mix tape of my mind ♫
• “Money Changes Everything,” by The Brains
• “In Heaven,” by Peter Ivers
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The End
10/8/2022
Cranky Old Fart is annoyed and complains and very occasionally offers a kindness, along with anything off the internet that’s made me smile or snarl. All opinions fresh from my ass. Top illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Comments & conversations invited.
Tip ‘o the hat to Linden Arden, ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf’s, Captain Hampockets, CaptCreate’s Log, John the Basket, LiarTownUSA, Meme City, National Zero, Ran Prieur, Voenix Rising, and anyone else whose work I’ve stolen without saying thanks.
Extra special thanks to Becky Jo, Name Withheld, Dave S, Wynn Bruce, and always Stephanie…

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