My abbreviation CCC

Abbreviation can be abbreviated as abbr. Ok, so much language trivia. On to the post.

 

 

I'm searching for a sign

 

but I should get out more

 

On a my walk today, I talked to a squirrel

 

This says it all.

 

Oh yeah the abbr.

CCC stands for Curious Confused Clown.

It's been a strange month so far. 

Two lines from "Goin' Back":

 

"...

But thinking young and growing older is no sin  

And I can play the game of life to win

..."

whoa-oh

I've got troubles, whoa-oh.

I've got worries, whoa-oh.

 

I need to find that feeling down in my shoes. Maybe I should take off my slippers and put on some shoes. Then I might be able to walk away my blues. 

I need to move out of this.

No good being a hot head about it.

Comfort food?

Easier to stay in bed but shouldn't.

Don’t give a hoot

I don’t give a hoot.

I should say, I rarely give a hoot. I’m not the rowdy type. During my teens and twenties, I gave a hoot more often. I tried to be careful not to get the boot.

I suspect the slang word, hoot, has been dropped into the slang bin. Language constantly morphs.

A good comedian often creates a hoot of a character. Lily Tomlin created the hoot, Ernestine, the telephone operator.

In the end all we have is words. Words to share. Words to remember.

FYI, I’ve disclaimed my disclaimer so no need to present it here. Really, I don’t give a hoot. But if you do, the comment box is open.

Endings

Ending of the week, weekend. Ending of the year, year end. Unless you are in a business meeting, “year end” does not come up often in conversation. Instead, we say new year and focus on the hope for the new year. I like “new year” vs. “year end”, but the transition is the same moment in time.

Do we get conditioned by books and movies to expect happy endings? Those are other people’s stories not your own. I say, most people have hope and if you have hope then you might expect a happy ending to your own story.

Over the hill - what hill? There are many obstacles faced in life. It seems that obstacles that were minor annoyances in my past appear as insurmountable now. Dealing with frequent changes has become a bigger problem. Is my final stage (stage? phase? no stage needed to act) not meeting my expectations?

The world changed and I changed but not in sync with those world changes.

I’m stealing the following line from the Jim Croce song, “Age” for advice about hills and climbing.

I’ll be careful while
I’m climbin’ ‘cause it
hurts a lot to drop

I’ll dig up some hope for next year. I’m reminded of the saying, “if I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”

Rabbit holes, conspiracies, and various terms

I just climbed out of a rabbit hole.

 

Reality check - Unlike Alice I've never been in a rabbit hole but we have rabbits living under our deck.

 

Can rabbit holes have tangential holes?

 

Much bigger than our rabbits

I would go in order of the title but life often doesn't have order.

 

My older wonderful sister recently shared her exchange with another candidate off her online generated list. I don't care for the term "online dating". Yes it's online but the dating part doesn't match my definition of dating. I suggest calling it "online exposure to weird and infrequently normal people".

 

After a few long phone calls and a dinner she discovered this guy believes a 9/11 conspiracy theory about the twin towers. She told me he has been disqualified but I'm not sure if it was because of his conspiracy belief. Whatever the reasons he was eliminated.

 

This started me thinking of the weird world of conspiracies. It has become dangerous. Jan. 6, 2021 shows that to be true.

 

Spreading conspiracy theories can destroy support for the government and investigating done by various organizations such as the FBI. Questioning statements is good but just believing out-of-nowhere ideas because of your previous mistrust is bad.

 

I first conspiracy theory I recall was the JFK assassination and the next one was the moon landing. Were we just lucky not to have online social media sites back then? I think those theories only spread through tabloids at the check out counter.

 

-~-~

 

I peeked into a rabbit hole when I read the term "anti-self-duality" in some article I was exploring the other day. I backed out of that rabbit hole when I read differential geometry and Riemannian oriented manifold. This is incomprehensible for me.

As a corollary we see that if the cross section of a tangent cone of a noncollapsed limit space of orientable Riemannian manifolds is smooth, then it is also orientable in the ordinary sense, which can be regarded as a new obstruction for a given manifold to be the cross section of a tangent cone.

I think a see a tangent cone in the rabbit hole below (lower right corner??):

internet distraction

An internet distraction lead to learning a new word. New word for me. It's now trending. She-who-takes-squirrel-pics showed me an example of this activity but we were both unaware of the term "splooting" back then.

So while formulating procrastinating my next post, I was distracted by a squirrel picture (look squirrel!). I had seen this wildlife activity before but didn't know there was a term for it. Here's a similar squirrel picture she took from years ago.

this is squirrel splooting

Moose splooting or keeping the pizza warm?

End of internet distraction. However please leave a comment on the way out.

Society broken

I recently read the following in a news report: “Elected officials are also turning book banning into another wedge issue in the culture wars.”

The word “war” gets diluted by being used for situations that are not a war. The “cola wars” or local “gas wars” are examples.

 

I do wonder why some people appear ready to fight in these culture wars. I met a man who was about 5 years older than me at a neighbor's house last weekend. It didn’t take long for him to start his recruiting talk for his side of the culture war. I had mentioned having visited Arizona just before the pandemic. He threw out some negative comments about immigrants in Arizona. I can’t imagine that’s the only thing he could say about Arizona. I suggested we talk about less political things. I recall saying, “while I don’t know much about flowers I would rather talk about the nice flowers here.” We eventually left the war behind in our conversation.

 

Was my reaction different because he was on the other side than me in this so-called war? Maybe I would have joined in by criticizing the former Liar-in-Chief if his comment had matched my view.

War is not the answer. The culture war is not a real war but promoting it does agitate people and can result in tragic events such as the Jan. 6 2021 attack on Congress.

 

NBC news reported a scary story of how militia groups are using local emergencies in California to recruit people and get good PR. The NBC story's link.

What a change from 20 years ago. Post 9/11/2001, (from https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/09/02/two-decades-later-the-enduring-legacy-of-9-11/)

“..the public largely set aside political differences and rallied in support of the nation’s major institutions, as well as its political leadership. In October 2001, 60% of adults expressed trust in the federal government – a level not reached in the previous three decades, nor approached in the two decades since then.”

I’m not saying we should remain quiet about what we see as wrong. We should dial down the anger. Peacefully demonstrate. Let's try to have a civil discussion.

I chose to avoid engaging with this culture warrior. I’m glad I didn’t bother to confront a guy with views I considered extreme rightwing. I’m fairly certain he picked up that our views differed. We don’t need to shout. I might mention him to my neighbor in the future because I’ve known my neighbor for many years. He is not a warrior. However he might have different views than me. I don’t recall ever talking politics with him.

 

Take a deep breath, feel like I’m chokin’ 

Everything is broken.

 

 Ok, not everything is broken. But there are too many things broken.

 

A real deadly war is going on as I write this. I suspect most Ukrainians would not call our cultural issues a war.  

one word too many meanings

Maybe you don’t give a shit. Maybe you find my blog the shit.

Whatever. What the shit?
Shit you say.

Yes you are correct. This post is about shit slang. Have you seen the pile of poop emoji? It’s so popular they sell bean bags resembling it. Maybe you have sat on one.

Looks soft but don't get too deep in it.

There are other slang words with multiple meanings and usage but shit is the shit. Instead of getting too deep in shit I’ll just share this youtube video I discovered recently. It’s long for a youtube video, 13 and half minutes. The video is by “Rachel's English”.

Her self-help videos are offered as an online American English pronunciation resource. I learned some of the latest slang and got a few laughs too.

If you had the time to watch the clip you now know some shit. Hopefully this post didn’t stink too bad.

words thoughts or thoughts words

What is coming right up, will be left up to you or in other words it is still up in the air. Add your comments below.

 

Do words create thoughts or thoughts create words?

 

Whatever.

 

Probably goes both ways. Occasionally the word/thought cycle spins a few brainwaves that eventually  produce a post.

 

Hey I'm walking here

Brain Squeeze

I offer you a short diversion from the current tragic news of a crazy senseless invasion.

 

😟

 

I'm a poor speller and find many words tricky. I wrote the following sentence to help me with two similar sounding words.

 

I agree with your sentiment about the river sediment.

 

😟

 

Last year I drove my older sister over to a less than desirable area of our hometown. She was on a short visit and wanted to take a few pictures of old houses related to her past.

I said to her, "if anyone asks what you are doing here, tell them you are researching a murder. They probably will ask which one."

 

We didn't need to use that line that day. I plan to keep it handy for future encounters.

 

😟

 

I can't say my words flow much like the imaginary given in the Beatles' song "Across the Universe". 

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup
They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind
Possessing and caressing me

 

 

Door nails (the door nailed it)

It seems odd that we use a door nail to judge some dead thing.

Sooner or later

Is that the same as any day now? Time will tell but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Of course that’s assuming the universe will provide a bridge over troubled waters.

There are a plethora of phrases used without much thought. Many of them are built around slang so perhaps a surplus of slang would be a better description.

younger and not yet afraid of this

The Lisleman Institute of Wordy Knowledge has recently contemplated the following phrases. These phrases can be found in the lyrics of various pop songs.

• Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong (our political situation?)
• She came in through the bathroom window (ok this one has a story behind it but I've often wondered)
• Talkin ‘bout my generation (market research definition?)
• Get back in the ring, put on your gloves and fight (I'd rather just take the long way back home)
• This dog-eat-dog world (animal cruelty by dogs?)
• 'cause you know, sometimes words have two meanings ( yes that's my problem with phrases)
• That it can only be seen by the eyes of the blind (The blind have better imaginations. This is similar to a book being better than the movie)
  

 

Back to those dead door nails, I found a youtube video that gives a good explanation of its origin. Maybe, when one door nail dies another one is born?

 

 

More favorite things

Is it easier to name your favorite things or your most disliked things?

 

I don't know.

Maybe it depends on your current mood. Sometimes a favorite thing is related to a disliked thing. When you are expecting a favorite thing and shit happens, you end up with a disliked thing.

 

It’s hard to hit the ground running when I don’t have a leg to stand on.

 

so I'll just move on to some photos

 

Lectures by dinosaurs

 

Science

People with a sense of humor

 

Pictures with bears

 

 

More bears

Public art

Strange signs

Youtube music videos that STAY on your post, these are few of my favorite things.

 

 

 

Oxymoron

While searching for oxymoron examples I came across this: “Words can not express my limited vocabulary.”

Wet Creek would not be very distinctive

After our orderly confusion of Thanksgiving I’m noticing more oxymorons. I do enjoy the contrast offered by combining opposites. Do you enjoy a good paradox? Life is full of them. 

 

This morning I found a Mary Schmich post in my Facebook feed that starting me pondering the many opposites in my life. Here’s a line from that post: 

"All of the best times in my life have grown directly out of the worst times. What feels like manure often turns out to be fertilizer."

(Mary Schmich's FB page)

 

 

I find some songs illustrate the oxymoron idea. I found this new old song called “Perfidia”. It was written by Alberto Dominguez and covered by many. I believe the melody is uplifting and a little joyful. 

 

Perfidia is Spanish for perfidy meaning betrayal. In my mind that subject should have slow sad music. Take a listen to the English and Spanish versions: 

 

 

 

Mindful

You really can’t fill your mind to the full level. There’s always room for more knowledge. Now, I’ve certainly become overwhelmed too often. The chaos of nature sometimes comes at us too fast. Now maybe my memory of being overwhelmed is a bit flaky but it seems I’m more prone to being overwhelmed as I age.

Being mindful is a great condition to be in. If the opposite is being mindless, then a mindless condition/action might have a deadly outcome.

I have enjoyed learning and still want to learn more. My last post was about the notion of boring. Boring is so very subjective. I’m certainly biased but I find my posts very interesting and I consider a few to be educational. Oh no I used that boring word, “educational”.

I’m becoming self-taught on various branches of physics such as cosmology by reading books such as Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry”. At the end of the chapter 7 titled, “The Cosmos on the Table” he describes the names of some chemicals as sesquipedalian. I had to look that one up. The word sesquipedalian is sesquipedalian. It’s a self-referential word.

Now that I overused my new word of the week, I’ll move on.

On a trip this past spring I came across a strange sign in a small Texas panhandle town. It was too interesting to skip taking a picture so here’s the sign.

What happens at 34 or 36 seconds?

I spent more than 5 minutes looking around trying to figure out the purpose of this sign. You might notice the railroad tracks in the background so I assume it has some connection to freight operations on the railroad. Why does it state such an odd specific time? Would 1 minute be too long? When do I start timing? Do I need to carry a stopwatch? Please provide your guesses in the comment section below. I’m mindful but clueless about this sign.

 

Oh be quick or take your time. It doesn't matter to me.

Boring stories of

Of my blog?
Of my life?
Hey, boring is very subjective so watch your labeling.

Same three colors all day every day.

Before you read further, deeper with growing anticipation, here’s my warning. This post is boring.

So going through my spotify playlist, Bruce’s song “Glory Days” hooked me for a few plays. I studied the lyrics. This post title comes from his lyrics.

Here’s another lyric selection:

"...And I hope when I get old I don't sit around thinking about it But I probably will..."

Well I did and still do.

 

Last week I read the news of a guy in Michigan who unearthed 160 bowling balls in his backyard. That same day I read that in Dubai they opened up the world’s deepest swimming (diving?) pool. This is my attempt at reading balanced news.

I tossed a few words around and came up with these one liners.

Gum line - Don’t cross, I’m defending my gum line.
Praise the Lord and pass the admonition.

Here’s a boring discovery. Do you realize people create videos of reading boring stories and offer them on youtube? Should I start recording readings of my blog posts?

Einstein quote, “I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious.” I found the quote in “Einstein his Life and Universe” by Walter Isaacson.

Oh one more thought to consider. Your past glory is very subjective too. It's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Crystal balls and other things

Crystal balls and other things I don’t have.

There are many types of balls to bounce, throw, and roll. Even better than your mother’s meatballs or my aunt’s rum balls are those magical crystal ones that provide predictions. I still don’t have one.

If you don’t keep your eye on the ball, you won’t know who dropped the ball.

Hold that thought while I work on a breakthrough post.

Well this and most everything in life is a work in progress. The following public art is being installed at the Morton Arboretum.

 

I found the following description while browsing to increase my knowledge of the universe.

The Center for the Advancement of Topological Semimetals, or CATS, has a mission that is focused on the discovery and understanding of topological materials, especially magnetic topological semimetals, which possess entirely unique bulk and surface electronic properties not known in other materials. The CATS mission is a complex materials challenge.

I think the founder that CATS group must be a cat lover.

 

While on subject of robots. Oh wait, sorry my thoughts bounced randomly to robots. You'll either enjoy this clip or be scared by the sight of sophisticated robots.

 

 

I haven’t ever poured my coffee on my cereal but it was a close call this morning.

While reading over the lyrics to Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads, I noticed a comment section about the song. The best comment was “Covid-19 brought me here”.

And you may ask yourself, "What is that beautiful house?"
And you may ask yourself, "Where does that highway go to?"
And you may ask yourself, "Am I right? Am I wrong?"
And you may say to yourself, "My God! What have I done?"

 

Well if you ask, What's this post about?" there's a comment section to use below.

reprise a parody

I first posted my parody of "Witchcraft" back in 2015. Here's the rerun (reread?).  

 

lighten up relax

If I was Frank (and had his band) I would sing, “come blog with me”, or “I’ve got your comment under my blog”. She-who-wonders-why-I-blog loves Frank’s version of "Witchcraft". Here’s my twist on it - Blogcraft.

Those pictures of my hair
That blank whatever stare
That strips my conscience bare
It’s Blogcraft

And I’ve got no defense for it
Ideas are too intense for it
What good would common sense for it do

Cause it’s blogcraft wicked blogcraft
And although I know it’s strictly taboo
When you arouse the words in me
My head says yes indeed in me
Proceed with what you’re leading me to

It’s such an ancient pitch
But one that I’d wouldn’t switch
Cause it’s nicer to bitch with you

(imagine the big band sound here )

Cause it’s blogcraft that crazy blogcraft
And although I know it’s strictly taboo
When you arouse the words in me
My head says yes indeed in me
Proceed with what you’re leading me to

It’s such an ancient pitch
But one that I’d never switch
Cause it’s nicer to bitch with you

I thought of working on "Bloggers in the Night" but I don’t want to go there. Bloggers in the night exchanging comments. Do be do be do ….

Legend of Lisleman

Don't worry about me. I'm alright. If the past is any indication, my plan will go flittershitters quickly.

Bus ride gone flittershitters

Change, switch, flip this topic. New terms everyday. Who reads the website terms? 

What’s the plan for becoming a legend? Does a blog help?

This blog has taken me to --- hmm, well I don’t know, actually physically it hasn’t taken me anywhere but the dining room, upstairs spare bedroom. But it has connected me to many other blogs and blog writers.

NO RHYME OR REASON - I’ve never had much rhyme but I do believe I could reason ok. I was Just Testing The Shift Key On The Left. It’s been slow to Activate lately.

 

I escape to the space bar often

 

Old Man Walking - Yeah, I’m still able to walk around. Yesterday, I enjoyed playing in the snow with our grandkids. Great to have a backyard hill for sledding but watch out for the fence, oh and the tree, yeah the utility box too. Nobody got hurt. I was worn out at the end.  

 

 

slip sledding away

 

I've tried posting about Lady Godiva once. My breaking news post on Doris Day gathered some comments. (she was still alive then but my post got her age wrong) 

I take advice from the lyrics of my favorite songs. From Ray Wylie Hubbard’s song “Mother Blues”

And the days that I keep my gratitude
Higher than my expectations
Well, I have really good day

Does the following equation equate?
Changes = feeling older

Both of my eyes still see fine but I discovered a song called “Legend of the One Eyed Sailor”. A legend is not worth losing an eye over.

Phonics ain’t my thang

Diphthong - It’s NOT wearing your thong into a hot tub. It does sound a little like that though. 

What’s going on, you ask.

 

 

 

Recently I woke up with a rhyme in my head. The words flight and fright stayed tight in my brain. It started before the morning sunlight. It was my plight to get it right.

The rhyming words in this post all have the diphthong igh which uses the IPA symbol /ai/. I had a terrible time grasping phonics in grammar school. I still have problems pronouncing many words and my spelling sucks.

I churned up a few sentences with words rhyming with flight. Enjoy.

Does an earl or duke have oversight of the knight?

You need at least a slight bit of light to have some sight. Even in the dark you can discover insight which might be out-of-sight.

Their plight was living through a blight.

His insight was taking a trip to fight his fright of flight.

Tonight the delight of the night will be to sight a bright white light in flight.

In hindsight this post would be better with planning and foresight.

words found

crisp scents mingle on a dewy summer morning

Try to guess where I found those sensory words.

I didn't find those paint-a-picture words strung together in a book or a play. No some marketing/advertising budget probably paid an ad copywriter for them.

I read them a few days ago while taking a shower. I thought the post title of "words from the shower" could be a great title. However, they were not my words and you find them on store shelves so the shower is not needed (except for me). Those words were wasted on a tube of Cucumber Melon scrub. The one-who-exfoliates uses it improve skin quality. I don't care for cucumbers or melons.

More important words lower down on the same label warn about getting the foamy scrub in your eyes. They didn't bother to describe the mingling of scrub foam with your eye fluids. I'm sure it would ruin your dewy summer morning mood.

STOP you'll rust

One last bit of thought (most of my thoughts are in bits) - do many people really enjoy dewy summer mornings? Not me. A dewy morning just tells me it's going to be really humid and sticky during the day. A dew on your garden after a long dry spell is appreciated.

Sweet the rains new fall, sunlit from Heaven

Like the first dew fall on the first grass

Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden

("Morning Has Broken" Songwriters: Eleanor Farjeon / Yusuf Islam)

The MonaLisa twins covered it well: