Silence is indeed golden.  2019 has thus far been my least contentious year of life precisely because it’s been my quietest year of life, hands down.  Like you, I’ve learned that when I just keep my damned mouth shut, unnecessary problems are easily avoided.

We’ve established that most people are genetically programmed to subscribe to a worldview that infuses life with meaning and will often suspend disbelief (or, if you prefer, ignore their faculties of reason) to accommodate such a view without conscious hypocrisy.  We’ve also established that both you and I have a very hard time accepting this perplexing but very common mental game.

In 1983, Lou Ferrigno played the titular role in the film “Hercules”.  At about the age of 14, I tuned in to a showing of this fantasy crap-fest on WABC’s The 4:30 Movie and spent the next hour and a half in absolute hysterics.  Even by early Eighties standards, the visual effects were laughably atrocious.  And Ferrigno’s dialogue was, of course, dubbed.  Take a look at this GIF of Hercules tangling with a bear, culminating in, I assume, the creation of constellation Ursa Major:

Yeah.  According to IMDB, Hercules made over $11,000,000 in box office sales.  I’m certain that at least some of those movie goers didn’t show up at the local multiplex to laugh at terrible production values and I’m also certain (by law of averages) that some of those people left the theater feeling they’d gotten their $8 worth, and then some.  But how can that be?  Weren’t they watching the exact same film that caused me to bust a gut on that fateful afternoon in 1984?  Of course, they were.  And those who enjoyed the movie were in possession of a skill that I do not possess: the ability to make themselves believe that what they’re seeing is the very antithesis of what I described.  Kinda like Christians and Muslims and Jews and Hindus and Buddhists and Sheikhs and Scientologists and Zoroastrians and everyone else whose theological views require a deliberate suspension of disbelief.

But much like “Hercules”, I can discern nothing of substance (save for comically mock-worthy material) in any theological system of which I’m aware.  Ditto for political conservatism.  Any philosophy, be it secular or religious, that requires fear from its adherents in order to function is masochistic and more than a little unhelpful to the potential evolution of our species.

That brings me to today’s question: do you believe humanity will continue to thrive long enough for another great evolutionary leap to occur or do you think that this is it and mankind in the year 2019 represents the pinnacle of our history?  Might some form of negative evolution already be underway as a result of the ubiquity of communications technology?  Is there anywhere left in the Continental United States where a guy can get a decent Ruben sandwich for under $10 and if not, should we even desire for our species to go on?

It’s lunchtime.  Gotta go.

Mumble,

‘Mudge

P.S.  What kind of person uploads a picture of Fred and Wilma to their blog media without immediately and proudly displaying it on their page?

For whatever reason, I put considerable thought into names of characters, places and things in my stories.

When you read a name, you say it in your mind and if it’s wrong for the character, then I find myself stumbling over it every time I read it. When a name fits, you know it.

Finding a name can be challenging. Baby names from various countries have often been my go to source for characters. Scanning google maps for location names works for places. But these often feel generic. For fun, I created a Python script that combines letters in roughly random fashion to create jumble names. The script is below.

But to give you an example, I’ll print 180 names, randomly generated. Tell me if you don’t see a few names that speak to you. Remove a letter here or there and pow, there’s the name for your next villain, love interest, pet seal, seedy uncle or dying grandfather.

Script:

import random
#~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
# Main program entry point
def main():

 words1 = ["a","u","y","o","a","e","i","e","'"]
 words2 = ["d","g","h","k","n","s","p","v",""]
 words3 = ["'","c","m","j","f","q","w","t"]
 words4 = ["d","g","h","k","n","s","r","p","v","z","e","i",
          "o","u","y","a","e","b","c","m","j","f","q","w","t"]
 print ("Starting...")

 f = open('.\output.txt', 'w')

 triplet = []
 for a in xrange(0, len(words1) - 1):
  for b in xrange(0, len(words2) - 1):
   for c in xrange(0, len(words3) - 1):
    triplet.append([a,b,c])

 for x in range(1, 51): # number of names
  l = random.randint(3, 4)
  s = words4[random.randint(0, len(words4) - 1)].upper()
  for i in range (1, l):
   n = random.randint(0, len(triplet) - 1)
   a = random.randint(0, 2)
   if (a == 0):
    s += words2[triplet[n][a]]
    a = random.randint(0, 2)
   if (a == 0):
    s += words3[triplet[n][a]]
    a = random.randint(0, 2)
    s += words1[triplet[n][a]]
  print >> f, s

 f.close()
 print ("Done")

#~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
if __name__ == '__main__':
 main()

(The reason the lists are called “words” is because I first used this to create random book titles using different words.)

Here’s to LittleFears and his tenacious passion for puns and evocative art.

The sight of the beast, the woman’s partner said, provoked childhood fears the likes of which he’d suppressed — through therapy — and would care not to have them resurface.

The DI placed a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “But we need your statement.”

The fellow shook his head and narrowed his eyes at the detective. “This is going to haunt me forever. My little fears, they grow huge at night. You don’t know what I…”

“Without your help, Chastity’s death will go unpunished.”

At six am, the station had just started to buzz with activity. The smell of coffee and sweat drifted through the corridors. The heatwave continued unabated.

“Fingers like knives, blades extending from every angle of its body and a… a snout like it had descended from some primeval creature. And its eyes, lover’s eyes. Hungry lover’s eyes, that consumed me. Then it nosed down and began to… to feed.” The lad leaned forward and gripped his face, his voice muted. “Chassie’s b… blood, black in the streetlight, dripped…”

“Good,” The DI interrupted, pulled his phone out, tapped it and set it on the table. “Now again, from the top.”

Having commuted over it more times than I care to admit, I often thought of those who took the plunge.

https://davecline.wordpress.com/2019/04/22/past-the-gate/

Years ago I thought that if you were elderly and poor, homeless even, then committing a crime in order to go to prison (three squares, a bed, TV and mates to talk to) would be an ideal habitat.

Turns out the Japanese are doing just this. See the comment below (link included).

What else should the elderly be doing? Sharing their homes with oppressed college kids who need to save $ for room & board?

Dangerous work that doesn’t require high physical strength or acuity?

The military. Don’t send youngsters in to a war zone – send old folks?