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This Is Not a Debating Society

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If it hasn’t happened to you before, it will—especially if you post a blog that identifies you as a libtard. I am certainly one, and proud of it. A few days ago, I wrote a post about my dislike of what the Second Amendment has come to mean. If you say something negative about guns, you will inevitably draw a response from a troll.

Now it is a well-known fact that it is not worth disputing with a troll. If the troll posts a comment, it will not be to obtain information or evaluate your post: It will aim at “pwning” you, by making you look like a fool. The goal of the comment is for the troll to “win” and for the blogger to “lose.”

What I usually do is, as soon as I detect a troll-like tone, is to hit the troll with a preemptive burst of snark right off the bat. Before he could bring his guns to bear, either hit him again or casually deprive him of the right to post on your blog site.

This is not a debating society. When I write about politically sensitive issues, I have no interest in engaging with the opposition in a dispute. All these disputes come across as dreary exercises that are not worth engaging in. So have no compulsion about blowing off the troll. You have no obligation to defend yourself against nugatory attacks.

2,684

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This is not how I have written some 2,684 blog postings on WordPress. This picture is wrong for the following reasons:

  • I don’t wear nail polish.
  • I hate coffee. Even the smell of it sickens me.
  • I use a desktop, not a notebook computer.
  • Flowers? Not likely.

The only things that are true to life in this picture is a container for pens and pencils (none of which I use) and the folded eyeglasses. I have two pairs of glasses: one for long distance and the other for reading. It just so happens that my computer screen is midway between the two, so I don’t wear glasses unless I have to enter something from a book.

Next to my monitor on my desk are a Fujitsu Scanner and a Lexmark MC3224 color laser printer. Also various books I have recently reviewed on Goodreads.Com, keys, an MP3 player, various cords for transferring pictures from my digital camera (which is also on my desk), my cellphone, a box of AA alkaline batteries, tons of handwritten notes, and a pile of bills to be paid.

This Is More Like It

Anyhow, this is more in the spirit of the way I write, except I don’t smoke and I use a computer.

How can you become a prolific writer with incurable verborrhea, like me? All I can say is just write. Pick a time of day, have your say, and be religious about it. Every evening at 9 pm, I begin by writing a book review for Goodreads (where I have over 1,700 book reviews), and then thinking of what to post, beginning with an appropriate (or, in this case, inappropriate) picture to lead off with. And prepositions to end a sentence with.

Over the years, it’s become a bit of a compulsion. And that’s the way it has to be if you want to post 2,684 times.

A Quandary

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What Do I Do About This F*cking Clown?

What I would really like to do is write about the things that interest me. Our president, leader of the notorious Trumpf crime family, interests me about as much as the Big Macs and Chicken Buckets that sustain him. As you can probably tell if you’ve been reading my posts, I would be delighted to see him disgraced and out of the picture, preferably with a half raw chicken leg blocking his esophagus.

On the other hand, who wants to read about my hatred of the person who, by accident, is our president. I am so upset, that I deliberately boycott purchases from the states whose electoral votes put him into the White House?

I have written along this line before, because I don’t really want to write about this moron. And I won’t unless I have something original to say, something that the usual news media have not previously published.

If you don’t see as many future articles about the political mess this country is in, just note that my position on him has not changed, other than intensifying.

 

 

Monetize This!

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Don’t Worry: I Have No Intention of Succumbing

At least once a day, I get a spampost asking why I don’t attempt to “monetize” my website and make tons of money. Give me a break! If I give in and allow advertising here, then I am no longer in charge of its contents. The advertisers would be.

These days, whenever I go to a news website like CNN or NBC (Fox was never on my list), I am not only surrounded by ads: I also have to close the ones that pop up in the middle of the screen or encroach from the sides. I hate having to close or minimize all the ads that prevent me from getting at the news. What is worse is that interspersed with the news is so-called “sponsored content,” which is nothing but advertising that attempts to fool you into thinking it’s news instead of mere clickbait.

I hate that! Advertising is becoming so all-pervasive that I have given up on many websites where it is particularly intrusive. When you come here to watch me rant and rave, that’s all you get. No links to what Phoebe Cates looks like now or why you should stop taking Metformin. Then there’s “12 Smart Travel Hacks” or free shipping with some CPAP mask, whatever that is.

So if you’re more interested in some huckster’s false promises than what I provide here, I have a great bridge for sale that might be right up your alley!

 

Killing Batteries

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Leif Pettersen, Travel Writer Extraordinaire

Travel writers tend to be a bloodless crew these days, which is why I find Lonely Planet writer Leif Pettersen such a delight. He is a specialist in travel to Romania and Moldova (you’ve always wanted to go there, haven’t you?). He is the author of a blog called Killing Batteries, which sends you to some of the more interesting pieces he’s written. My favorite posting is entitled “The 10 Best Lonely Planet Articles of All Time (That I Wrote),” which is a good place to start. It will tell you why Florence is not always the best place to go in Italy, delicious local foods that look ugly, rain and other travel buzz-kills, how to travel with friends (and not want to kill them), stuff you should never take on a trip (includes: children and pets), and best places to stage a cathartic breakdown.

One could read travel articles for information, but if Leif is the author, you will also enjoy them, because the man has a great sense of humor.

Pettersen has recently come out with a book entitled Backpacking with Dracula. Remember, he is an expert on travel in Romania. And he thinks one of the safest places in the world to have a cathartic breakdown is Bulgaria. So you can feel comfortable with Pettersen behind the Slivovitz Curtain.

Things I Don’t Really Want to Write About

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Subject A

Subject A

It is difficult for me not to write about certain subjects, especially when I am so upset about them. But then, I have to think about you, my readers. However strong I feel about certain things, what if I really don’t have anything to add about what has already been said?

Anyhow, on to the list, in no particular ordure [SIC]:

  1. Presidential Elections. Let’s face it: Even the pundits whose job it is to opine on the political scene either have nothing new to say, or else they are in the business of influencing opinions.
  2. Donald Trump. You know what I think about the Cheeto-haired beast. ’Nuff said!
  3. Awards. Whether it’s the Oscars or the Nobel Prize for Literature, it’s all about politics, usually who hates whom.
  4. American Conservatism. It seems to be segueing into National Socialism (Nazism).
  5. Police Violence. Black lives do matter! All Americans matter!
  6. Terrorism. Everything we do emboldens the terrorists, so let’s just get on with our lives.
  7. Guns. Since when does a “well-regulated Militia” mean that crazy people get to play with Bushmasters?
  8. Ecology. Even if the Earth is on the point of being irretrievably poisoned, we gotta dig coal and chop down trees, no?

There are probably a handful of other subjects which aren’t worth ranting about, mostly because of the seemingly irresolvable split between the Union and the Confederacy. Occasionally, I will still blab out a post when I know I should keep my mouth shut. Please forgive me in advance!

Motor Mouth

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My 1,000-Post Anniversary

My 1,000-Post Anniversary

This is my thousandth post on WordPress since I joined in 2012. That amounts to a little less than one post a day for almost three years. It amazes me that I had that much to say.

And—you know what?—I’m by no means done with all the things I mean to say. So look to this pot for a strange potpourri of the things I’ve read, thoughts that flitted through my brains, my Internet experiences, movies I’ve seen, places I’ve visited as well as those I hope to visit, scientific conundrums, humor, and God knows what else.

Tomorrow, for instance, I plan to write about my problems with the Chilean volcano Cabulco. (I plan to skirt the danger zone on my way between San Carlos Bariloche, Argentina, and Puerto Varas, Chile.)

 

Doohickeys

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This Does Not Look Like Standard English

This Does Not Look Like Standard English, Does It?

Rick Steves refers to them as “little doo-hickeys over some letters that affect pronunciation.” I call them diacritical marks, a sure sign that you are dealing with a foreign language. Sometimes you find them in English in words such as rôle, coöperate, or façade.Then you might think, “Gosh but this is old-fashioned!”

More than just doohickeys, diacritical marks are extensions of other countries’ alphabets. A couple weeks ago, I wrote a posting entitled “Dysinventions”, mostly of my dislike of touchscreen keyboards. In the post, I wrote:

I feel bad enough that there are some Eastern European diacritical marks I can’t use, such as an anacrusis or the Hungarian double-acute-accent over the “o” and “u” to indicate an extended vowel sound. In time, I will figure this out. But not on one of those touchscreen keyboards. I can imagine it would be gruelling just to type an average paragraph shifting between upper and lower case letters and numbers, let alone diacritical marks.

If I can’t make it look as if it were typeset, I would just as soon forget the whole thing. It just wouldn’t be me.

Well, I finally did figure it out. There is a great Internet resource called Typeit.Org which enables me to quote directly from twenty-six different character sets, including: Currencies, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Icelandic, thye International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) for English, the full IPA, Italian, Maori, Math, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Symbols, Swedish, Turkish, and finally Welsh.

Now there is nothing I cannot type with my keyboard in any of the above configurations. Just so that I can control the type font, there is one additional step: I paste the text into Microsoft’s Notebook, which strips out Typeit’s default font information, and then copy and paste the result into WordPress.

At long last, I feel confident that I can print in Hungarian without misspelling such passages as:

Bár külön beállítási opció nincsen rá, egy egyszerű szintaxis használatával lehetséges a régi szótárból ismert teljes egyezésre, bármilyen egyezésre, vagy akár szó végére is keresni.

Note in particular that word egyszerű with its doubly accented “u”.

Please don’t worry that I’ll go crazy with this new tool. After all, nem akarom, hogy ellenátkok. (“I don’t want to befuddle you.”)

 

 

Spare Me the Fame

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Why Would Anyone Want My Help in Setting Up a Blog?

Why Would Anyone Want My Help in Setting Up a Blog?

Mine is not a particularly striking looking website, yet each week I get numerous requests for information on how I put it together, together with questions as to whether I would link to their website. The odd thing is that I don’t believe these people, especially since:

  1. Their e-mail address indicates they are in some dubious business, such as selling designer knock-offs.
  2. Instead of referring to a recent posting, they seem to be linking to my media file, especially to photographs from postings of several months ago.
  3. They never say anything that would indicate they actually read what I write—never any link to any actual content.

You never see these requests because I erase over 99% of the entries identified by WordPress’s Akamai (means “smart” in Hawaiian pidgin) Spam filtering system, and that’s where these usually end up.

Another group of pseudo-comments wants to see me get a lot more hits and to be at the top of Google searches. Why? Obviously, I’m not into blogging for the fame. If thousands of people daily visited Tarnmoor, my life would turn to crap: Imagine having to filter through hundreds of comments.

If you found this site because it was on page ten of a Google search, and you like what I do, you are most welcome. If you want to tell the world what a great blogger I am, I would think you would be doing me a disservice. If I have to spend all my time tending to this site, I would just as soon give it up.

In fact, I like to write. I like to use the process to think things through. And I like interacting with my friends. So don’t offer any suggestions how I could crud up this site by using clickbait the way that Weather.Com and most news websites do. There’s no clickbait here, and no advertising. If you like what I write, well and good. If not, there are other places you can go.

The Slow (or No) Road to Fame

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The All-Too-Easy Road to Mediocrity

The All-Too-Easy Road to Stultifying Mediocrity

My congratulations to Brian Gordon of FowlLanguageComics.Com for a very funny cartoon.

I have gotten thousands of Spam e-mails offering cheap (pseudo-)pharmaceutical products and Louis Vuitton and other fashion knockoffs. Interspersed among them were comments that my website needed improvement. I was supposed to have a lot more pictures and a lot fewer words. And I was supposed to load much faster on Safari—whatever that is—than I currently do. Also I get a lot of questions from people asking for help setting up their own websites. (Good luck, guys!)

This website as it is is a reflection of who and what I am, not an attempt to get thousands of “likes” and “favorites” from people who not only do not mean anything to me, and with whom I do not necessarily care to interact.

Let’s face it: I’m a dinosaur. I don’t watch television, follow sports teams, listen to pop music, or give a flying f*ck about celebrities. Life is so pitifully short that I do not care to waste any of it going into the clickbait business. I have seen great websites fall into the click trap. When I feel I don’t have anything else to say, you can bury me. Until then, I will follow my different drummer to wherever he leads me.