Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
Regular friends of teh decanter will get the title, knowing ol’ Robbo’s opinion that Tuesday is the emptiest day of all. With that, how about a few, well, empty thoughts?
♦ Ol’ Robbo teh English major is something of a hide-bound reactionary traditionalist when it comes to matters of language and grammar, but even I must acknowledge the text-driven power of the modern acronym to encapsulate profound meaning in minimal expression. As an example, consider the following: SOTU? STFU!
No, I did not watch tonight’s State of the Union address. Nonetheless, I think I can condense however many minutes of verbiage it lasted into two words: We’re humped.
♦ This past Sunday happened to be Robbo’s 49th birthday. This one came and went with very, very little fanfare or festivity, in part because I’ve ceased to care that much and in part because I was so busy with church (early Mass for me, followed by shepherding teh Middle Gel down the Cathedral for both the 11:30 eucharist and 4:00 evensong), that by the time I got home, all I wanted was a glass of wine and some solitude.
♦ Speaking of gels, teh eldest had her key snap in the garage door at Port Swiller Manor this afternoon as she came home from school and tried to get in out of teh 18° cold. Not panicking, she called Mrs. R at work and went up on to the porch to grab a blanket from one of the chairs to keep herself warm. Mrs. R arranged for a neighbor to rescue said eldest. I am very proud that she did not panic.
Obviously, we’re going to need a back-up entry method. Any hackers out there? Don’t look under teh garden gnome!
Nonetheless, if she tries to pull a “Oh, Father! I’ve caught a chill and can’t go to school today” tomorrow as a result: I will do such things,–
What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be
The terrors of the earth!
♦ Ab über-random thought: I much prefer the ’86 re-recording of “Don’t Stand So Close To Me” by The Police to the original. I think the broody, nightmarish quality of the latter version to be much more effective.
♦ Oops. I just finished posting a longish random tidbit trying to link Brother Anastase Douay, the only surviving witness of the murder by some of his own men of René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle in 1687 in East Texas, with the great Douay-Rheims translation of the Bible. (We’ve reached the depth of post where, on teh Mac, I can’t figure out how to linky. If you are interested, I suggest google.) Alas, there seems to be no direct connection. Cliff Clavins of the world unite in weepage.
♦ Those friends of teh decanter who spotted teh quote from King Lear just above (Act 2, Scene IV) may be interested to know that ol’ Robbo saw Anthony Hopkins offer up those lines on teh stage in London in 1987. It’s been a great many years now, but I can still say with confidence: Tony completely blew it. I dunno whether it was his idea or his director’s, but his interpretation was an utter fail.
Well, on that note, I suppose I will pack it in so that I can get myself reading for Hump Day.
The Port Stands At Your Elbow 
3 comments
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January 29, 2014 at 11:06 am
captainned
I can get away with this due to living in rural VT (and having a hyperactive dog that barks at shadows), but my gel just punches in the code for the garage door opener and comes through the garage. The entry door in the garage is left unlocked unless we’re all away on vacation or the like.
Not sure if that translates to NoVa, though.
January 29, 2014 at 9:59 pm
Robbo
We’ve got one of those code thingies, too, but I haven’t the remotest idea what the magic number is. The opener was installed by the previous owner and I didn’t think to ask when we took over.
A year or two ago, we had to have a tech out to replace one of the internal gears in the opener because it had worn out. Somehow, the subject of the remote came up. He assured me that it was no problem to reprogram the thing and give it a new code of my choosing, but I waived him off. My poor head is already so full of ever-shifting passwords and codes that I just couldn’t take the idea of another one.
January 31, 2014 at 2:38 am
captainned
OK, you don’t have to remember the code. If the NoVa schools are anything like up here, the gels already have to remember PINs for auto-debit lunch money programs and the like. I set mine to my only gel’s lunch money code so it’d never be forgotten. Get the gels to agree on one code and you’re done. Alternatively, securely fasten a remote inside each gel’s backpack.