Having flown four times yesterday, providing immeasurable entertainment to many and sundry – including one gent who could not be compelled to leave go of the flight controls no matter what the hazard until I turned about and looked him in the eye, like – your correspondent returned to these his humble digs all full of great intentions. He would pat the younglings on the noggin, offering them both loving and sage advice with a twinkling eye, the like that would be of strong advantage to them even as they grew. He would sweep the Hobbit off her feet with lines of poetry, red wine and p’raps a back rub. He would answer the many several thoughtful emails that lay a-mouldering in the queue for want of time, or in fact thoughtfulness with which to service them. He might even find a postprandial opportunity to write teh Great American Blog Post.
For although the hour was indeed advanced, the day was not yet old.
But no: Her ladyship was not immediately in attendance, even as the rascals themselves were either otherwise situated or hastening to be so, retinue in tow. Before I could say, “Bob’s yer uncle,” the manse was mine alone.
But the combination of physical and mental exhaustion attending to our earlier endeavors – not to mention a general sense of vodka martini-driven lassitude and concomitant awareness of subsiding aptitude – resulted in our efforts being squandered instead tinkering around in the back end of the WordPress version I use to offer up ice cubes of blogging brilliance in a sea of electronic mediocrity. This effort was undertaken while simultaneously renewing the outward facing “theme” that allows you, gentle reader, to both view and criticize these our humble efforts.
A twofer of “change”, if you will. Anyone can play at that game.
But – as is all too often the case – change has its price, elements of which I am only gradually becoming sensitive to. The “Archives” page for example, proved not at all the thing under the new WordPress schema, so that has been temporarily, if ruthlessly suppressed for the Greater Good, comrades.
The favor of your patient indulgence is requested, as well as any pithy observations you may have for improvements. Ch-ch-changes.
Turn and face the strain.
Lex, you are the Seinfeld of the milblogs. You have an amazing gift for making “nothing” into wonderfully entertaining reading.
And regarding the “gent” who would not let go… I shudder to imagine the “motivational” look you must’ve given him.
Hmmm…. that didn’t come out quite right. The Seinfeld comment refers to this post, not your entire blog.
*slinking off to hide until mind fully wakes up*
A blog about NOTHING! Discuss.
From what to what and how? What are you personally going to sacrifice for that change? If you want to lead, lead, but you sacrifice FIRST! Then let the American People follow your example. True leadership starts with example and then, precept.
Grumpy
Lex, my friend … the good old Puritan work ethic seems to have you by the throat. You don’t have to be doing something useful all the time. Or anything at all. Peace is fugitive at the best of times. Sometimes it’s lovely to just be, to just sit there, with or without a cold Guinness warming in your hand.
Marianne
So this is an overly loquacious “I broke it, sorry”, correct?
Loquacious perhaps, overly is, I suppose in the beholder’s eye, but broken it is not. Altered, maybe. But not entirely broken.
What’s a’matter you? Don’t like “change”?
Talk, my friend, is cheap.
Talk of change, it would seem, is even cheaper.
Here’s the thing, I can’t see nuttin’ much changed around here.
Except, of course, for that completely uncivillized and ruthless suppression of the arhives. Admittedly it’s not such a big deal as long as you continue to inspire us here in the present with your brilliance and tales of derring do . But you must realize that should, God forbid, you ever attempt another ’sabbatical’ like that last, we would all be hard pressed to draw our next breath, without access to the archives. I trust you see the ever-present potential for disaster here and, sage man that you are, will govern yourself accordingly.
one gent who could not be compelled to leave go of the flight controls no matter what the hazard
Hmmm, must have been a relative of his that I flew with. Inexplicably and quite suddenly decided that the back side of a loop was a great time for his first lesson, and by golly, he was ready for solo too!
I made him (literally) sit on his hands for the rest of the ride.
Still tinkering? Took me three tries with three associated “fatal errors” before I could access the comments.
And, like Michelle, I don’t see what, if anything, has changed. But I ain’t quite the sharpest tool in the shed, either.
Lex,
Is this new wordpress the new version with all the admin panel revisions, or is this the security update to 2.3 whatever it is?
Jim C
Jim, 2.3.2 which has a new tag structure and security revisions. Still fooling around with it…
Do not know if Vodka “bruises” as easily as Gin, but accepting real possibility of such phenomena, the problem lies in technique…
Those who argue the efficacy of “shake” vs “stir” are unfortunately displaying their ignorance. The truth of the matter lies in stir, but only with a glass road which has been fired at both ends. Without such an instrument the juice (nectar?) of the grain or potato will bruise. The long stem metal spoon ain’t no rose. Toxic metals will leach off the metal, gradually leading to not one, but two forms of intoxication.
Captain, if you do not have a glass rod, gently swirl your favored concoction, for any other agitation will produce “bruising”. And for God’s sake, get rid of the ice cubs when your libation is chilled — who knows what the Government is putting in the water these days…
Of course you could take a page from your comrades of yore, spot of rum with freshly squeezed lemon. Rot’s your brain, but you will not die of scurvey…
Our Paul: Vodka does not bruise like gin. Gin=never shake, for fear of bruising. Vodka= the more you shake, the smoother it gets.
When magnified, it becomes apparent that vodka ‘clumps’ and has a ’sawtooth’ appearance; multiple filterings tend to break these up into smaller size razor blades. Shaking vigorously in a METAL shaker will do the same. Glass is so much smoother that it take a lot more shaking to get the same effect. There was a good article on this in Popular Science a while back, written by a guy who financed a doctorate in chemistry from MIT by bar tending. Trying to find it in their archives. . .
My 2 cents: the “Vesper Martini” from Casino Royale (and th book, originally) is the best way to enjoy vodka or gin.
Ahh, you are correct sir … when I was banging around earlier the Archives had been “ruthlessly suppressed”!
Humble 1390: Big Blue came through!!! My oh my, not unexpected, a bit less margin by the Jints then I was predicting, and more tense then I was expecting. Why even that salacious, so called Gray Lady, on the editorial page preferred to raise past disasters than to exhort the troops to victory. Strahan’s gap tooth smile said it all.
Enough for the shaking hand, sweaty palm, and furrowed brow, time to reach for something to steady my palsy hand. I have no knowledge of vodka “clumps”, so I am unable to comment on “razor blades”, other than to point out that they should be kept out of reach of all those who inhabit the frozen north of Kennedy land…
As I pointed out to Lex, the problem may well lie in the ice. Who knows what the Government puts in the water!!! That is why, after a hard slog under double reef main and #2 stay sail, the preferred “pick me up and lay me down” is rum, lemon, and maybe a bit of salt in the snuff box of your thumb, but no ice.
I quite agree with you about the deleterious effects of metal on all things alcoholic, but I hesitated to bring up glass. We all know that glass is nothing more than high temperature treated silicon. In a wafer form, programed silicon chips are the soul of a computer. As others, and Lex himself has pointed out, the thread is about the misbehaving of his programmed silicon wafers…
The solution may lie in Aquavit, which is never shaken or stirred, never contaminated by ice, and always served in a long stem shot glass. One does not gulp this stuff down, there is a ritual among the civilized Swede’s which I will leave for another time.
And although some may chose to look down on this Scandinavian country, and disdain its sinful and socialist ways, let us remember Commander “Swede” Momsen. He, and his highly trained divers, rescued the crew of the “Squalus” and then subsequently brought her up to fight again. Pass that nice chilled bottle of Aquavit down here, the hell with Vodka, Gin, and Rum. A toast to Lex, and may his troubles lead him never to “stir” with a stainless steal spoon again…
May I request a cheer for the Giants?
In ordinary times the best possible outcome for this displaced Redskins fan would have been for both teams to lose. A consultation of the rule book set me straight however.
To underdogs then, and those who never say “die”: Hip-hip-hooray for the Giants!
Not sure about the Swedes, but in Norway they definitely know how to distill a good akavit. Now if only I could find a decent liquor store here in Lower Alabama that stocks Linnie. . .
Lex, my friend and others of your courtly and kindly commenters … if you are adherents of other football teams, look at it this way. The South rose again yesterday. The Manning boys are a football miracle, when complemented by a supporting team full of heart … Peyton’s team won last year and Eli’s this year. There must be something special in that Mississippi water. And it’s probably not Aquivit. But heroes are made in different ways. And having a Dad like Archie Manning doesn’t hurt.
Marianne
Lex, Re your… me too… comment # 17 above…An appalling example of shameless Monday morning pandering/band-wagoning ( is that a word ?) … a most distressing situation… indeed. Best
OP, It is my understanding that in certain circles the term ” civilized Swede” is considered an oxymoron…Please advise. Best
Snake – being 1/4 Swedish myself, I resemble that remark (#21 above).
That said, I just can’t be civilized this morning. The Pats blew it – well and truly. Sure, defense was working hard in the first half, but my god where was the QB protection! Brady must still be fuming over the completely unnecessary hits he took – more times than he would have preferred I’m sure.
In all, I found it to be a boring game. Even the halftime show was listless – and I’m a big Tom Petty fan. The stuff on The Food Network was better.
boring game??!
Not a fan of football, are you…
Redskins fans all watched the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet as a form o’protest I heard…
b2
Lex:
May be its the result of continued tinkering or maybe Bill Gates’ infernal creation (XP/IE) is throwing another curveball, but the site is defintiely a bit, um, dislexic today with the columns well out of their assigned spaces and overlaying the top and middle spaces on the main page and individual articles. This while viewing in IE 6.0 @ 1024×768 enforced browsing standard…
- SJS
SJS- I don’t suppose there’s the remotest chance that you could, em… upgrade?
Probably not. I dont’ think anyone uses 6.0 that doesn’t have to.
How about now?
Maybe I’m coming in a little too late in the game, but from my Windows XP Pro IE 7 viewpoint, everything looks good, and functional, to me. Fwiw.
And congrats to the Giants. Being a Bears fan, I default to the NFC when the too oft Bears-less Super Bowl comes around.
Snake: First of all, civilized is a matter of definition. That some circles may consider “civilized Swedes” an oxymoron comes as no surprise. I suspect that those in that circle may keep their right (or left depending on the accident of birth) in their pocket while standing in the circle…
Actually, it is nothing other than the prosaic story of the March of Genes. Starting with the Vikings, and proceeding into the 17th century when the Swedish Crown ruled half of Europe, the Swedes sacrificed a fair number of their warriors and their genes. Although the warrior class remained fearsome, by leaving the country they left their fair maidens (I do not think there is any argument about their maidens) unprotected. The warrior’s gene was swamped out by the limp wrist males who preferred music, poetry, song and art to blood of battle. And thus, civilization took root.
On the other hand, those warriors dating from the Vikings forward did leave their own genes scattered across the known globe. It is one of the reasons why the NFL prohibits genetic testing. If it had been discovered that the Giant defense was loaded with the Viking warrior gene, smart money would never have put them as 12-point underdogs!!!
Humblet 1390: As you well know, in Norway, as in Sweden, the long stem shot glass is never brought higher then the second button on your shirt, your hand never more than 10 centimeters from your chest, and you always Skoll your most fearsome opponents…
Skoll to the Patriots, Redskins, and all who struggle valiantly, but did not quite make it…
Looks like your system is up and running again,
*looking back and forth between OP and Snake*
It’s getting hard to tell who’s kidding who…
OP, I really am going to have to get you up in chat and work through that anchor tag thing with you – you’re getting warmer, but you’re not quite there yet.
Assuming you’ve got the link stored in your clipboard, you need to paste it between the two sets of quotes after the original href= tag. Close that tag with a right caret “>” thus (emending those quotation marks) and then close the entire reference on the back end as you’ve been doing and you should be good go.
Lex:
I *only* use IE because the IT-nazis at work force that on us (think: son of NMCI) From home, on a *real* browser (Firefox) looks fine.
- SJS
Sorry about that one Lex, I cannot even use my old dodge “It’s better to be lucky than smart” for i this case I fail both tests.
First link is to a thesaurus:
http://www.bartleby.com/cgi-bin/texis/webinator/sitesearch?FILTER=&query=civilized&x=12&y=11
The second is a Wiki link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Sweden
Can somebody give me aphorism that will a dumb guy look smart?
I was wondering which upgrade, myself:
IE 6.0 to IE 7.0 (not Firefox?!)
XP to Vista (¿que?)
Windows to Mac (and the hits just keep on comin’)
I now see some of the changes you were talking about Lex. Like the tags for each post which don’t match up at all with your old labels. So now I’m thinking that the archive page, which was so ruthlessly supressed for the Greater Good. Temporarily, you would have us believe but … I’m just wondering how that will ever work now. Or is that something to be decided at a later date? Enquiring minds and all that …
All of that is at the mercy of Christine from the Internet, who created the Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin (of great justice).
Lex just pawn in big blog of life.
Fbl: actually I enjoy football. The last quarter of the Super Bowl was interesting. The rest really was rather boring, at least to me.
FYI Lex, looks fine under IE 6.0 and IE Explorer Mobile under WM 5. You already know it works great under Opera and Firefox.
Looks pretty good under Lynx, too, so far as that goes.