All Purls. No Swine.
I'm not sure I completely understand the myriad purposes of Twitter. It's useful to me, because I can link it to this blog, and send out automatic notifications when I publish a post, and because I have several dozen people who follow those announcements on Twitter, and who--one hopes, and I think this is the… Continue reading Putting the “Twit” in Twitter
It works, doesn't it?
Surely you remember the word? It was coined a few years ago to define establishment Republicans who--according to those more edgy--had failed themselves, their constituents, and their country, and were headed--following the 2016 election of Donald Trump--into oblivion. Well, almost. The word was CUCK-servative. What Lewis Carroll would have called a "portmanteau" word, derived from… Continue reading Cluckservative?
Prompted by a brief side conversation on a Ricochet post earlier this week from member BDB about his Microsoft Surface Pro in which BDB, Henry Racette and I all deplored, in one fashion or another, the tendency to replace useful instructions and text with the sometimes baffling icons and graphics that–sometimes alone–comprise most “installation manuals,”… Continue reading Use Your Words–Please!
There. I said it. Granny Panties. LOL. I'm guessing I've lost most of the men who follow my blog. For this post, at least. But I mean it. The fact of the matter is that--almost half a century ago--even at this point in my life: my nether regions were--day to day--covered by modest, cheap and… Continue reading In Praise of Granny Panties
95-year old Queen Elizabeth gracefully declined a nomination as the 30th "Oldie of the Year," an annual award given by Oldie Magazine, a "light-hearted alternative to a press obsessed with youth and celebrity." Previously celebrated by the annual tongue-in-cheek award, among others, were John Major (politics), Olivia de Haviland (entertainment), Glenda Jackson (entertainment) and Ian… Continue reading Queen Declines ‘Oldie of the Year’ Award: You Go, Ma’am (as in ‘ham’)!
Before my husband, Mr. Right, died last year, he spent many years (probably well over a decade, now that I reflect on it with the benefit of hindsight) slowly succumbing to dementia. It's a cruel disease, as many of you know. But also looking back on it, and--indeed--since he died, I've found humor in some… Continue reading An Autocorrect Fail, or Just the Funniest Book Review Ever?
Susan Vass is a retired stand-up comedian (from the days when such people were actually funny), who writes a regular Friday humor column on PowerLine, one of my favorite websites. (It's the website that, all the way back in August of 2010, introduced me to Ricochet.) Susan's column for Friday, October 8, 2021, can be… Continue reading Happy Birthday, Ammo Grrrll!
Happy May 13, National Frog Jumping Day! I can’t think of a better way to celebrate it than to reprint here the story which started it all, Mark Twain’s The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. It was his first significant published work, and appeared as Jim Smiley and his Jumping Frog in The Saturday Press (a weekly New York literary… Continue reading Celebrating National Frog Jumping Day
One shortcoming of current machine-learning programs is that they fail in surprising and decidedly non-human ways. A team of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students recently demonstrated, for instance, how one of Google’s advanced image classifiers could be easily duped into mistaking an obvious image of a turtle for a rifle, and a cat for some… Continue reading I Know a Hawk From a Handsaw. And a Cat From Some Guacamole