‪Mosquitoes are nature’s way of getting me to slap my own face and make me think it was my idea.‬
Deaths in 2016
Yeah, I know. Years are just an arbitrary way of delineating things. BUT — THIS particular arbitrary delineation is an outlier. I take note of deaths in the course of a year. I keep a list. Not just celebrities, but others I know; it’s just a form of remembrance.
I had to look, just to satisfy my curiosity. How many have there been this year, and how many last year, just to pick a convenient year for comparison.
Last year, there were 70 on my list. The most notable one for me was Leonard Nimoy. This year, I counted earlier today, was 87. Now adding Debbie Reynolds, 88. And there are a LOT more highly notables, and many before what could conventionally be considered “their time” — too young.
So, 2016 is worse than our collective most recent frame of reference, 2015. And not by just a little.
Plumbing vs. philosophy
The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.
~ John W. Gardner
When logic reigns supreme
If sanity ever does reign supreme, it will probably be lonely.
It may have logic to keep it company. Hopefully compassion and mercy won’t be strangers either.
Storming the castle
If you’re determined to storm the castle, let the other angry villagers go first. That way, the monster will be more tired by the time it gets to you.
Beard care with Occam’s Razor
Beard care with Occam’s Razor:
The simplest possible solution is not to shave.
Fall approacheth
A banner appears in the distance, one month removed from today. “Welcome to fall,” it says. Each day is a step closer in the march to the equinox. If you can’t stop the march, dance instead.
Redemption
The word of the night is redemption. If you did not win at the Olympics last time, you are obligated to seek it.
Otherwise? I don’t know. If you don’t earn your Olympic redemption, do you wander around in shame for the rest of your life, unable to meet the eyes of others in polite society? All the competitors in the world all striving for a very small number of places on the victory podium, but if you do not win, no redemption for YOU.
And is redemption a zero-sum game? Because you achieving YOUR redemption at the Olympics denies someone else the chance to win theirs.
(In)undating
The word of the night is inundating.
By the way, do you ever wish you could undate someone? I mean, bad date, you wish it’d never happened, you want those hours back? There’d probably be bad unintended consequences to undating. These ideas that alter the fabric of time and space never seem to end up well.
Safer. No more realistic, though
“People want to forget the impossible. It makes their world safer.”
~ Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book