Birds Of A Feather Fibbing Friday

Pensitivity101 says that the following are all birds, but asks, if you didn’t know that, what would you say these words meant?  At her behest, I’m going to fib my heart out, and  publish my answers here.

1. COOT

Me! – And my League of Extraordinary Older-Gentlemen Grumps.  Apparently there are no young coots.  You gotta be old, to be a coot.  Sean Connery was our Honorary Chairman, until he passed on, to that great Oatmeal Bowl in the sky.

2.   DUNLIN

That’s the name of the firm of Solicitors who constantly telephone, and send threatening letters, to get people to make monthly payments on their car-loans and mortgages.

3.   HOBBY

Hobby is the non-productive expenditure of free time and energy.  The hobby of the people at Hobby Lobby is harassing and abridging the civil rights of those who they feel don’t have the correct sexual orientation.

4.   KNOT

Knot is a euphemism for getting married – tying the knot.  For serial offenders like Mickey Rooney, Liz Taylor, and Larry King, it’s a slip-knot.  😳

5.   RUFF

Ruff is Dennis the Menace’s cartoon canine companion – the more intelligent, less destructive and irksome of the pair.

6.   SCAUP

This is an evil, online commercial deed, performed by a nefarious net-villain.  Every time I want to attend a concert by Jethro Tull, The Moody Blues, ELO, or Billy Joel, some guy with a refurbished NASA computer, and a power source about equal to a small sun, temporarily suspends his Bitcoin mining operation, swoops in and scoops up all the good seats, and then offers them online for 5 to 10 times their original cost.

7.   SERIN

That’s the cultured fluid that ethical, educated, intelligent medical researchers use to make COVID19 and variants protective vaccines from.  It’s the same stuff that nutty conspiracy-theorists, who watched the science Fiction movie, The Fantastic Voyage, believe that Bill Gates (or anyone else) cares enough about them to add tiny little machines to track them with.

8.   SMEW

It’s all the fault of the good, warm English ale.  An American tourist stole a street sign from outside the East-End, Brantley Mews.  The Roads Maintenance Department sent out a two-man team to replace it.  Since they arrived near lunch-time, and the Anvil and Turtle Pub was just outside, they had some cottage pie…. and six or seven jars of beer.   Somehow, when the sign went up, it read SMEW, instead of MEWS.  They had to send out two teetotalers to set things right.

9.   SNIPE

That was the bitch witch at my last job that I set a record with – worked with her for 14 years, and not once did I give her a well-deserved smack in the head.  We called her Princess, which she took to be a compliment.  She was the Princess with the pea, constantly carping about every little thing.

We were working on the wrong project, and if we were on the right one, we were using the wrong procedures, and if we were using the right methods, we were on the wrong schedule.  The only person she never complained about, was the office manager, and she followed him around like Mary’s little lamb.  Smooch, smooch, kiss, kiss!!  The difference between a brown-noser and a shithead – is depth perception.

10. TWITE

There are too many Brits who wouldn’t say Shit if they had a mouthful.  They say Shite, and pretend that they didn’t use profanity.  I can only presume that an irritating, irksome goofball is called a Twite, instead of a Twit.

Caution: Reading Is Dangerous To Your Ignorance

A Little Song
A Little Dance
A Little Seltzer
Down Your Pants
And apologies for last year’s comment-less display
Here is the annotated list of books that I read this past year.

Peter Clines – 14

Combination Sci-Fi and Horror, about an LA apartment building that’s also a machine built by Tesla, sealing a rift into a world of monsters and demons.

Jennifer Macaire – A Crown In Time – A Remedy In Time

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Murray Leinster – A Thousand Degrees Below Zero

Previously unread, vintage Sci-Fi.  1909’s version of Mister Freeze
A candidate for Published before I was born.

Lawrence Krauss – A Universe From Nothing

A book from an astrophysicist which shows how the Universe may have come into existence without a God – but with an unfortunate, poorly chosen title which seems to show Christian Apologists to be right.

Lee Child – Better Off Dead

Child continues to pump out wildly successful Jack Reacher books each year.

Gregg Hurwitz – Dark Horse – Into The Fire – Prodigal Son

Guns and knives and explosives – just some quiet, peaceful men’s-action reading to pass the time.

Mike Maden – Tom Clancy’s Firing Point

Tom Clancy may be dead, but the franchise lives on with hero, Jack Ryan Jr.

Scott Gier – In The Shadow Of The Moon

Good, contemporary Sci-Fi.

Andrew Grant – Invisible – Too Close To Home

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andrew Grant – also known as Andrew Child – takes older brother Lee Child’s story framework, and inserts his own do-gooder, social justice warrior, working as a janitor in a courthouse.  Interesting concept, and the quality is about as good.

James S. A. Corey – Leviathan Falls

Finally, the end of a massive series!  It’s been a ride.

Nicole Gallande – Master Of The Revels

Time travel from a woman’s point of view.  Like the Terminator movies – you arrive naked.

Mark Greaney – Mission Critical

When, like Mike Maden, he isn’t writing for Tom Clancy, he free-lances novels under his own name.

William Gibson – Neuromancer

Prophetic book from 1986, showing the birth of the Internet, and hacking.

Steve Perry – Past Prologue

Social, political, and religious reasons for action and adventure around the world.

Mark Cameron – Tom Clancy’s Shadow Of The Dragon

They’d be just another excuse to get you to buy a book – if they weren’t so damned enjoyable.

Crawford Kilian – The Fall Of The Republic

Modern time-travel Sci-Fi.

Fritz Leiber – The Big Time

A re-read.  1950’s time-travel Sci-Fi.  There seems to be a theme here.

Nick Petrie – The Breaker – The Wild One

 

 

 

A war-vet hero, with PTSD and claustrophobia.  It’s hard to run into  the burning building to save a kid.

K. D. Wentworth/Eric Flint – The Course Of Empire – The Crucible Of Empire

Steve Berry – The Malta Exchange – The Warsaw Protocol

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Urban fantasy/adventure – if you can fantasize being able to afford to go to Malta or Warsaw for adventure.

Gregg Loomis – The Poison Secret

The secret is, it was an enjoyable way to pass the time.

Raymond Khoury – The Sanctuary – the Sign

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sign was interesting.  Trying to use a giant hologram to brainwash and control society.

D. J. Harrison – The Secret Of The Scroll

Alternate Christian history – how The Church really began.

Allen Appel –Time After Time

Time travel by believing hard enough, and wishing yourself back into history.

Tom Hammond – What Time Is Purple

See my book review, if you haven’t already.

A Bit Of Orange – Answering Atheism – Proof Of God

 

As above, See my book review

Thanx for helping me renew my library card.

A Fear Of Fibbing Fridays

So, Pensitivity101 wants to know, “What do you think these are phobias of?”

Ablutophobia

It’s a fear of having to watch old Popeye cartoons.  Does anyone remember when the bad-guy character, ‘Bluto’ suddenly became ‘Brutus,’ because King Features couldn’t keep their books straight?

Androphobia

It is the fear of having yet another Terminator sequel movie released.  It would be sad to see Arnold hobbling around like a geriatric T-800 model with a cane, or walker.

Ataxophobia

This is the fear of the approaching, mid-April deadline, both with the American IRS, (Notice that The IRS spells theirs) and the UK Inland Revenue.  Canadians get another two weeks of paralyzing terror each year – until the end of the month.  It’s no favour!  I say it’s like ripping a Band-Aid off.  Be like Nike, and Just Do It!

Autophobia

This is the quite-reasonable distress caused by having to go out upon the streets and roads with all those Other Drivers.  I’m okay, but they’re all just a bunch of weird accidents, waiting to happen, and probably catching me in the crunch.
Anyone who doesn’t drive as fast as me is an idiot.  Anyone who drives faster than me is an asshole.  Forget World Peace – envision using your turn signals.

Bathmophobia is the fear of the end of the day, when you have three preschoolers and a sandbox.  Soap suds spreading faster than The Big Bang – and when you finally get them all clean, you discover that one of them is the neighbour’s kid.  😳

Chromophobia has suffered technological obsolescence.  50 years ago, the little gear-head greasers plated every piece of exposed metal on their cars bright and shiny silver.  Today’s OY-Generation decorate their penis-substitute Lego-plastic toy cars with neon brothel-lights, rear spoilers whose only purpose is to hold beers while they brag to each other, and modify their exhausts so that little Dachshund cars sound like Great Danes.  They claim that they soup them up!  Yeah, right – soup in a sieve.  😯

Ephebiphobia is the feeling of unease, when you realize that your unmarried aunt has been batting for both teams all along.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Genuphobia is the fear non-Catholics have, of having to attend a wedding or baptism in a Catholic church.  You never know when to kneel, or when to stand up, or sit down.  They’re all up and down like a prostitute’s panties.  By the time you figure it out, they’ve got the hymnbook out, and are singing.

Heliophobia

Ever since Kobe Bryant’s little mishap, it’s what has caused me to decide to not use gasoline-powered aerial eggbeaters as a mode of transportation.  It’s not what I want people to mean when they say, “He was a down-to-Earth person.”  👿

Nomophobia

This is an irrational fear of garden figurines.

Osmophobia was the absolute panic I felt when I heard a rumour that some television network, desperate to replace lost viewers, was going to give Donny and Marie another hour-long variety show.  At their age, they can’t carry a tune in a bucket.  Donny’s ‘little bit Rock and Roll’ would be shuffle and wheeze, and his purple socks would be orthopedic.

Podophobia is a fear of being unexpectedly called upon to say a few words at some community gathering.  Unaccustomed as I am at public speaking – I’m gonna sit down, have another beer, and let the paid performing seals do their job.

Trypophobia

This was the terrible uncertainty that I felt recently.  I went into the office break room early in the morning.  Someone had put out a Tupperware container of fudge brownies, so I took one.  I returned soon after, to see if the coffee machine had finished.  There was now a note on the brownie box.

I Made These Brownies For Shits And Giggles
Half of them have cannabis.
The other half have laxative
Try One. Wait a half-hour, and find out which.

Wiccaphobia

Which way did they go?  How many of them were there?  When did they leave?  I must find them – for I am their leader.

This is the fear that you are going to be assigned another project, because your boss is not sufficiently computer-literate to access the internet and look for himself.  Not only will you have to do extra research, but it will be on constantly-changing websites that can be edited by people who wear MAGA hats, and believe that the world is flat.  😥

Zuigerphobia

It’s the feeling of imminent doom that arises locally, beginning about the middle of September, when we realize that half a million people who want to get drunk and obnoxious, and throw up in a different town, are about to descend on our city for Oktoberfest.  Before I retired, I used to book the week off – not to party, but because I was tired of getting pulled over in DUI/RIDE Program Traffic checks.  That really sucks.  😉

***

I have a phobia that Pensitivity didn’t list.  It’s demifiniphobia.  That’s the fear I felt when I looked at all these big, fancy words, worried that I will only be able to respond to about half the prompts, and end up looking like a half-assed halfwit.

Book Review #28

Days of Future Passed

The shape of things to come!  This author was prescient.  This is where it all began, or at least, a big part of it.

The book: Neuromancer

The Author: William Gibson

The Review:
This book was written in 1984.  I had a chance to read it over 30 years ago.  The son read it, but I passed on the opportunity.  It would not have had the effect on me back then, as it did to read it recently.  I read a post by a blogger who was doing what I am doing, taking old Science Fiction books out of storage, and re-reading them.  His description intrigued me, so I got a 2010 re-published copy from the library.

The story itself is not all that exciting –by today’s standards.  His protagonist is a computer hacker who can mentally access, not merely individual computers, but can surf the entire Internet.  Of course, the author doesn’t call it that.  The term, and the function, did not exist back then.  He did not coin the term Cyberspace, but this book popularized it.  Soon, readers and other authors were regularly using it.

In 1984, computers, and their interconnectivity, were far less common than in his then-future fiction.  Since he couldn’t call it the Internet, he coined the term The Matrix.  While this author, and this book, are not completely responsible, they both heavily influenced Tron, and the three Matrix movies.

The précis reminded me of Johnny Mnemonic.  A bit of research revealed that, 17 years later, he shuffled some concepts around and wrote the novel that another Keanu Reeve movie was based on.  Microsoft had incorporated in 1981, but the microsofts (small m) that the hacker uses to jack in, are nail-sized inserts that plug into a socket at the base of his skull, like Sim-cards, or SD cards.  They contain relevant data, and operating code – the Apps of their time.

The plot involves the hacker either slicing or surreptitiously oozing past security protocols, to free a manacled A.I. – Artificial Intelligence.  The story also contains a couple of computer ‘Constructs’, which are essentially the uploaded knowledge, experience and personality of hackers who were killed while online.

This author impresses me like the deaf composer, Ludwig von Beethoven.  He conceptualized huge amounts of technology that he couldn’t see, but which later came to exist.  Finally, there is another peculiarity, not of the story, but of the particular copy of the book that I received.

It is in the page numbering.  Each page is numbered in the lower corner.  Each number is underlined.  The underlining on the right-hand, or Recto page, extends to the edge of the page, across the thickness of the sheet, and continues till it underlines the number on the left-hand, or Verso page.

Infinitesimally and imperceptibly, the numbers and the underlining rise and fall several times through the book.  If you firmly close the book and look at the lower edge, the ink forms an EEG brain-scan readout.

TILWROT III

In Search Of A Name

I was reading a Science Fiction book that began with a Space Navy shipwreck.  After her husband dies, the group of survivors is led by a broadly knowledgeable and adaptable woman with the Italian-ish name of Buccari.  I mentally pronounced it boo-kar-ee, until the author had one of her compatriots address her as, “Hey, Booch.”  I was reminded that in Italian words/names like bocce and Puccini with double C’s, they are pronounced as CH, so she was boo-char-ee.

Now I was curious.  Beginning with The DaVinci Code, I realized that authors often hide Easter Eggs in the background of their books.  What does the name mean??  Whatever it is, there’s a bunch of them, because the final I indicates a plural.  Translation programs just shrugged and walked away.  Google and Bing and friends, didn’t do any better, although one admitted that it was a surname, but the 286,532^nd most/least common one.

Down at the bottom of the page, the note said, People who ask about Buccari also research Buccari fiasco navale Croazien.  Clicking on that delivered an article, all in Italian.  I fed the first section back into the translation program.

Apparently, just at the end of World War II, a division of the Italian navy decided to shell the Croatian city of Bakar, because it had been used by the Italians as a concentration camp.  Based on the plural of “people from the city of Bakar,” the Italian name for it, and anyone from it, is Buccari.

Bakar, in Croatian, means ‘copper,’ and our heroine’s head is adorned with luxurious, Italian, copper-red tresses.  The author brought the uncommon name completely around in a circle.

***

The great-grandson is approaching his first birthday.  While a little slow starting, he is developing a nice head of Italian-red hair.  He and his parents will be joining us for a belated Easter/birthday celebration this Sunday.  I’ll bet that a photo or two of him will sneak its way into a blog-post before the end of the month.  😀

’21 A To Z Challenge – V Twofer

’21 Reading Challenge
Vanquished

I read somewhere…. That I read somewhere.  In a vain attempt to brag (Are there any other kinds??!) about all my free time in retirement, I present a rogues’ gallery of the books I read last year.

Gregg Loomis – The First Casualty

Tom Clancy’s series

Line of Sight

Oath of Office

Enemy Contact

Code of Honor

Lee Child – Blue Moon

Lee Child – The Sentinel

Gregg Hurwitz – Out of the Dark
Gregg Hurwitz – Hell Bent

Nick Petrie – Burning Bright
Nick Petrie – Light It Up
Nick Petrie – Tear It Down

Ilona Andrews – Sweep Of The Blade

Ilona Andrews – Sweep With Me

Ilona Andrews – Magic Steals

Ilona Andrews – Blood Heir

Steve Berry – The 14^th Colony

Steve Berry – The Lost Order
Steve Berry – The Bishop’s Pawn

Raymond Khoury – The Templar Salvation

Mark Greaney – Gunmetal Grey
Mark Greaney – Agent in Place

Crawford Killian – The Empire of Time

Mark Greaney – Agent In Place

Eric Flint – The Course Of Empire

Mike Massa – River Of Night

Grant Blackwood – War Hawk

James Rollins – The Demon Crown

James Rollins – Crucible

H. Beam Piper – Paratime

H. Beam Piper – Lord Kalvan Of Otherwhen

Philip K. Dick – The Zap Gun

A.E. van Vogt – Masters Of Time

James S. A. Corey – Persepolis Rising

James S. A. Corey – Tiamat’s Wrath

John Brunner – Time Jump

John Brunner – Total Eclipse

Kenneth Bulmer – The Key To Venudine

Neal Stephenson – The Rise And Fall Of D.O.D.O.

Crawford Killian – Red Magic

Seth Andrews – Sacred Cows

Herman Melville – Bartleby The Scrivener
*
Edgar Allen Poe – The Cask of Amontillado

Mark Twain – Letters From The Earth

Ward Bowlby – A Canadian’s Travels To Egypt

Flash Fiction #275

PHOTO PROMPT © Na’ama Yehuda

MORLOCK

Gather ‘round me, fellow agents of darkness.  We pay tribute to those who provide the needs of the sun-loving Eloi.

Many of the Early Birds are so proud of themselves, when they get a fast start on the day and show up at the Golden Arches at Six A.M. or the Mermaid Coffee Shop at Seven.  They don’t realize that those who waited on them, had to get up at three, or have been up all night, to get the grills hot, and the coffee urns bubbling.

They also serve, who work the night, for the benefit of the day-shift.

***

If you’d like to join the fun, go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

Sailor Smart

Some people will not be educated, no matter how hard we try.

When I attended high school, each year’s English class required that all students read six non-curriculum books.  You could pick them.  They could be about anything, but to prove that you had read them, you were required to submit a Book Report on each one – remember those? – fondly??

To prevent nerds like me from submitting them all in September, rules stated that they had to be spaced out.  A lad a year older than me, from landlocked Ontario, Canada, decided that he wanted to join the Navy, so he didn’t need to read no stinkin’ books.  Nearing the end of the year, he had managed to submit only five; although I think that a couple of them were based on Classics Illustrated comic books (Remember those, too?) – so he invented one.

Possibly using a reference to Herman Melville’s book, Billy Budd – Sailor, he gave it the title Sailor Smart, supposedly printed by a known school-text publishing house – number of pages and a plot précis – the story of a landlocked, Midwest boy who wanted desperately to join the Navy.  I’d have been tempted to let him away with his ruse, just for demonstrating such creativity and inventiveness.  The tough old schoolmarm, who made Archie’s Miss Grundy look like a kindly nun, spent most of an instruction period excoriating him, and demanded a real book be read and report filed.

He must have succeeded.  He graduated Grade 12, moved to Halifax, joined the Navy, and was never seen again.  Reading for enjoyment seems to be a Yes or No proposition.  My Mother read!  My Father didn’t!  I’ve known many intelligent, successful people who won’t read a novel, even when they could spare the time.  I just can’t imagine me without a book…. Or three.

I have seen many reading challenge posts.  I recently ran into this one.

In 2021, choose 6 books that have titles that contain a:

• One/1 (ex. One Second After; The 100)
• Doubled word (ex. In a Dark, Dark Wood; Wolf by Wolf)
• Reference to outer space (ex. The Fault in Our Stars)
• Possessive noun (ex. The Zookeeper’s Wife)
• Botanical word (ex. The Language of Flowers; The Sandalwood Tree)
• Article of clothing (ex. Bossypants)

The writer had read 12 books in a year, for a Goodreads challenge, but had read them all in the month of January, and then added 30 more by the end of the year.  I don’t understand the point of such challenges.  It can’t be to get people to read, because those who accept, already read – usually, a lot.  It doesn’t seem to be to get readers to read outside their preferred genre sphere, because you could pick books to satisfy all these requirements – in Romance, Sci-Fi, action/adventure, murder mystery, religion or political science.

In 2020 I read almost 40 books, from all the above varieties except Romance.  I checked them against this artificially concocted list, and found that I only had a match in (Maybe) three of the six categories.  No ‘ones’ or 1’s.  No doubled words.  Outer space came with Space Vikings, Star Rangers, Star Soldiers, and When The Star Kings Die – although both of The Expanse series, Babylon’s Ashes and Nemesis Games occur in outer space, but their titles don’t indicate that.

Possessive nouns returned with Babylon’s Ashes in hand.  The mystery Kevin: Murder Beneath the Pines provided the only botanical reference.  The requirement for an article of clothing might be satisfied, if you consider a gold watch to be clothing.

I refuse to obtain books just to satisfy some synthetic list.  I read what I find, that interests me, and Damn the Book Titles!  Full speed ahead!  How about you?  Would you buy/read just to check off some list??!

All The Languages Of The World

I am so glad that my blog-buddy, BrainRants made me aware of The Expanse series.  I have been reading the books and, not quite as quickly, watching the TV programs for several years.  It is a great epic series, not just because I love Sci-Fi, but because the writers provide tons of eclectic detail to flesh out the story arc, and the characters.

Two male writers, taking a cue from their mentor, George R. R. Martin – he of Game Of Thrones fame – and/or J. R. R. Tolkien, publish as James S. A. Corey, when neither of them is James, nor Corey.  As male authors, they have created at least four powerful, well-defined female characters.

The depth and breadth of their knowledge, which they work into the books is awe-inspiring – especially (for me) the linguistics.  Millions have gone into space, and many are mining the asteroid belt.  People move around on Earth, and the language where they migrate to slowly changes, but remains basically the same.

There was no Native Tongue in the Belt, so a new language, called Belta, has come into existence.  It includes some sign language, for folks encased in space suits, who can be seen but not heard.  The spoken language is mostly English, with additions and admixtures of American Spanish from Pittsburgh to Patagonia, Portuguese, German, French, Italian, Maori, Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, and more.

Every chapter brings examples of words and expressions that impress the Hell out of me, or drive me to dictionary or search-engine sites.  Remember, Belta is like Star Trek’s Klingon.  It is a non-existent language that these two are completely creating themselves.  The fact that I’m at least a year behind the avid fan readers, means that I sometimes reach a site where others have gone for explanations.

Recently, I hit four words on two pages that I needed to research.  One of the asteroids described, was not an asteroid, but rather, a collection of rocks with enough common gravity to hold them together, but not enough pressure to coalesce into a single unit.  Like a bag of giant marbles – without the bag.

The writers described it as a Duniyaret.  The Hindi word duniyah means ’world,’ and the Hindi word ret means ‘sand, or gravel.’  They had created a neologism in a foreign language, to describe this conglomeration of rocks.  A habitat had been created on the biggest chunk, by welding together, what were essentially steel shipping containers, at a slight angle to one another, to bend around the curve.  The authors called this “town”, Nakliye, a Turkish word that means ‘shipping.’

On the next page, I found a blazon – from heraldry, a patch or badge, often worn on lapel or sleeve, indicating owning or belonging, especially with good qualities.  When we affix such a marker, we use the slightly more-common word, emblazon.

The residents drank water that was hyper-distilled.  At first, I thought it might be like double-distilled whiskey, but the Hyper, in this case, refers to Hyperion, the Titan that the Greeks believed was the father of the sun.  They didn’t waste precious power, but used a large parabolic solar-collector, aimed at the distant sun.  I had trouble researching this term, because the search engines kept throwing up an American company named “Hyper Distillation,” which is not the same thing.

The UN Space Navy had an Admiral named Souther.  I was reminded of J. D. Souther, a singer/songwriter from Detroit, who influenced Glen Frey of The Eagles, to compose country-lite style.  I had assumed that the basis for the name was someone originally from the South of England – a southerner.  Imagine my surprise when I found that the name is occupational, coming from old English/old French soutere – a boot or shoe – therefore meaning a cobbler.

I have cobbled together a little more click-bait to lure you in.  Drop by in a couple of days, to see where my mind has gone without me.  😎  🌯

Flash Fiction #260

                        PHOTO PROMPT © Russell Gayer

FLYING CAR-PET

I can’t believe that this van is flying.  There must be some kind of technology involved.  Anti-gravity is tough enough to accept – but MAGIC??!

It’s not MAGIC magic.  It’s just that some of us have learned to harvest and direct cosmic radiation.  Harry Potter’s car flew.  I often wonder if Rowling is one of us.

But people must be able to see us.  I’ve never heard even nut-case reports.

The diffraction field makes people view us as birds, or distant airplanes.  We might even be some of those government UFO reports.  We’ll need to wash the unicorn shit off later.

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.