There are many cruel reminders to be humble, but one of the most cruel, as in heavy, dusty and a pointed reminder of the lack of royalty cheques flowing one’s way, is a box of remaindered books.
I recognize this box, or if not the actual box, certainly its contents. They used to reside under my parents’ pool table in the basement, or almost pool table for you purists: it was 4′ x 8′, there being no room for a full snooker table, but it could harbour a lot of junk underneath nonetheless. I should add parenthetically [then do so, ed.] (that my father was a mean billiards player. We played together a lot, and he could leave the balls where he wanted after his shot, time and time again. Most instructive. We were going to get a full slate, but the guys delivering it dropped it through the porch floor, and we ended up with a three piece set up. Great until we killed the bumpers being teenagers, and great as a place to be a teenager.)
I think hoping I wouldn’t notice, a well-meaning close relative recently brought some objects to my house that belonged to my mum. Some we had discussed, and some, well … he just couldn’t throw them out or look at them any longer. I would tease more, but the amount of sorting and sifting he has done has been monumental, so what is a box of remaindered books between friends? [It is a box of remaindered books, that’s what it is, let me tell you, and now it is my problem, all two, dusty, sentimental, cubic feet of it.]
Well knock me over with a feather duster, but hoping to find an image of a copy of the contents of said box on the miracle of the interwebz, I found you can buy a used copy on Amazon! With a cover I don’t recognize! And my dad’s name removed! But sparing me taking a picture of my Paperjacks Canadian original dud cover, here is an even worse cover, but at a great price to see just how idiotic I was as a child:
Actually, inspired to delve deeper into the box, I can assure you that it is the original box, and I can happily offer up a considerable number of unused, but treasured, copies for an even more attractive price: a self-addressed envelope, and a promise not to hold anything I purportedly said against me for all time. I was young.
So if you have any interest in owning a share in a smouldering family potato, feel free to contact me and you too [at least, the first 10 or so of you [deluded, just deluded, ed.]] can also wonder what to do with a delightful paperback introduced as follows by my dearly departed father:
Prolegomena
Word games, like everything else in our family, started with an argument. (“No they didn’t!” snaps daughter. “How do you know?” snarls senior son. “Why do you ask her how she knows something that she says didn’t happen?” shouts junior son….)
It was an interesting childhood, to say the least, and now I have a concrete, and I don’t use the word lightly, reminder of just how odd, occupying some prime real estate in the den, and we just don’t have a pool table in the basement to hide it under for another forty years.
[Note to self: do not keep extra copies of things for 40 years.]
So have a lovely Monday, and remember, what you are missing is a copy of Word Games: For Families who are Still Speaking to Each Other. Trust me, it is just what you want. Makes a great gift, too. Really.
Josh has a good one up this morning.
People who cannot accurately forecast markets
And thanks, xty, for the writing tips. You are so right about being fearful that people might read something into your own psyche. I feel like I should put a disclaimer at the top of the story that says “There is nothing autobiographical about this whatsoever! This is a work of FICTION. Really. No, I mean it. Really! And no, it’s not about you either!”
But that might be trying too hard, and they would be more convinced than ever that I really am truly twisted. Oh well, can’t win.
I mean, this whole thing came to me in a dream. Should people be held accountable for dreams? I think not.
Every once in a while, Mrs. O will wake up and tell me “I had most erotic dream last night! And you were part of it, for a change, which was nice.”
I usually respond, “Just happy to be in there somewhere. Glad I could help!”
There you have it. New highs in the S&P again. I guess all those doomsday crash callers from last month got it wrong again. Surprise, surprise. They can all go stand in the corner now.
Of course, they’ll be unrepentant. They’ll just move their target dates out a few months. That’s the first commandment of doomerism. Never, ever, ever, ever, say you were “wrong”. Just “early”.
Hey, gold is up today. I say dust off the bunker …
Even those who predict the end of the world will one day be right, and won’t they be smug then! Ha, they will say, I was right to be miserable all along. You fools who enjoyed life, like grasshoppers not studious ants, missed out on decades of angst and despair.
just filed my taxes. i have $32,000 of loss to roll over into future years. but i am free of the mindset that got me here for good. a heart felt ‘fuck you’ goes out to the doomers. and now i move on.
Xty – i’m making Swedish meatballs tonight. thanks for the idea. cardamon? i have some.
I put cardamom in lamb curry last night, and must say it was delicious.
I got a surprise tax return bonus by managing to looooose enough money that it somehow offset previous gains (?), in a year when we had basically no income. What a super investment strategy. I felt like it was compensation for being an idiot, like a consolation prize.
Congrats on putting the final nail in that coffin. We got behind in filing our taxes and it was a huge relief when the whole shammozzle was finally filed and realised.
well, there is one more nail. i have some unrealized losses yet that i hope not to have to realize. well, i will have to take some of them to pay my taxes. amazing – i have lost more than many people make in a year, and i am still paying. adding insult to injury, i had to pay a penalty because i did not send the IRS money quarterly last year, even though my income was not realized – i converted a pretax IRA to taxed (traditional to Roth IRA). now the bastards want me to pay quarterly next year, as i finally drop out of the middle class for good.
by the way, the $32,000 loss is a result of closing my trading account – opened in 1997. i am done. i never could recover after Santa Shill’s epic call that no one in that blog space remembers anymore. that was the final “dip” that this DIPSHIT ever bought. but spinning that positive, glad that money bought some hedge fund manager’s kid a beater Mercedes for college. or even the Shill’s very own kid.
have any bankers jumped (or were pushed) today? what about politicians, taxmen? yes, the IRS is not the source of the evil. but just doing your job doesn’t make it right. you can jump too.
i ended up just winging my seasonings. so i added black pepper, onion, garlic, and dill… and a little cardamom. i had saved my stock that i made my potato dumplings in the other day, so i used that for my gravy base, which also supplied a hint of nutmeg. so my Swedish meatballs raged, and were good enough to eat again this morning for breakfast. as i like to say to my wife, Damn am I a good cook! 😛
EO – i complained enough for today. i am saving the weather for you. 🙂
too many good articles over at Jesse’s today to list…
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/
Here’s one of those good articles, and I couldn’t help but think of Dagney “I piss on your common good” T.
Why Trolls Start Flame Wars: Swearing and Name-Calling Shut Down the Ability to Think and Focus
No wonder my pleas for civility met with such hostility. Focus and think? Must be verboten.
more and more have figured it out, as the sites numbers cratered. the paid shills, trolls, and agendas stood out more as the volume of posts shrank. you and i were completely correct in what we discussed over there by PM. and plenty of credit to the others over here now of course too. there seems to be some realization and maybe some admittance! by a couple of the bloggers that we were right also. i think they are trying to get the site back on track. as long as the top (now 2) leadership remains over there, i want it to fail hard. it is my utilitarian leanings.
Monedas definitely was the most obvious “troll”. just a sicko getting his jollies. wondering why he had to be protected is what led me to figuring out all of the rest eventually. many of the others were agenda driven, and probably paid. the bulk of them were simply what are termed useful idiots.
the political trolls just kept getting bolder and bolder. there are still a few partisan fools left over there – but i think the Tea Party shills are now clearly impotent, and quietly leaving. the few angry old white dinosaurs remaining over there are about as convincing and pathetic as was the character Archie Bunker.
that article i posted by Mike Lofgren, “The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted ” is getting really good treatment even by some of the more partisan sites, so the world really is changing. it just sucks to figure out things early. hurry up people! i want to look forward to a better tomorrow. do not be led by anger, fear, and hate! or by egotistical serial business failures!
anyway, all i really ever wanted to do was to help wake people up. and i believe that is the main reason i received such special treatment over there.
Not much of one for rehashing the past (just rehashing the present, if you know what I mean), but exploiting such false and harmful drama for financial gain, when you could have stopped it at anytime and were well aware of the nature of the situation, thanks to years of persistent badgering by a determined few, is almost, or actually, worse than just being a psychopath or sociopath, or being paid to pretend to be one.
that last sentence is the last piece of the puzzle. i don’t think the truth about that will ever be known.
No, but I really do believe that morality is partially innate, and being tortured by your own conscience is terrible. At some point false people tend to be hoisted on their own petards, and one doesn’t have to devote one’s one life to helping it happen.
i like your new band – well they’re new for me. they remind me of these guys…
In wino weritas leads me to add, and apologies to the genuine believers out there, but overt catholicism, especially by one portending to distrust institutions, is bizarre. The catholic church is the oldest surviving, most successful, economic enterprise of all time. A friend of all governments, still claiming a special envoy to god [hubris alert], and wealthy beyond belief. Of course someone who distrusts authority would flaunt their belief. Or, someone who behaves poorly 6.5 days of the week, enjoys a feeling of moral superiority by being publicly ‘good’ on a Sunday morning, and is a blind hypocrite, chasing the almighty buck he so derides.
sociopaths like to hide in plain site. in fact, they seem to relish in the deception. so look for clues in monikers, and avatars. but could it be that they want to be caught at some deep level? i am going to send you something in the mail.
Lots of their songs suck, but it is hard to write good songs.
I do and don’t miss albums. I miss sustained concentration, and themes and story telling, but at least you don’t buy 40 minutes of sound for 3 minutes of music, and the ability to hear new music and see if you like it is amazing. It has really helped to reduce the roll of the middleman in the music industry, freeing up more people to be a little bit famous rather than a few people being super rich.
Yes to wanting to get caught at some fundamental level.
indeed Xty! it is spelled veritas!!! 😀 😀 😀
yup.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/christian-metal-singer-pleads-guilty-murder-hire-n38636
The world is a funny place, it is. Just when I go off and decide to be on my best behavior, you two go off on something of a bender. Suffice to say, I agree with all of it. Not much to add, since my views are well known, both here and abroad (Hello, Swamp Creatures!)
In other news, while I’ll stipulate that waking up to an alarm clock is never really a good thing, this morning mine came on with this tune. All things being equal, it was nice. I didn’t really want it to stop, but I knew I had to get up and make tea.
Been grooving to this one lately as well. No reason. Do I need one?
Oh I know it is veritas – it was a terrible joke – wino, instead of vino – I guess you had to be here!
And as to bad behaviour, we have been very restrained, all things considered, and enough time has passed that vitriol has lessened and reflection is more possible.
And mum might just be okay and this is the first day I haven’t had to visit at least twice – left her this morning and am trusting to the stars that all goes well, so feeling a sense of relief. And my gastro issues have faded away, so happy times, as far as they go.
the jokes on me then! i completely missed the other mispelling! but, i do have the polyglot excuse. V sounds are W’s in German.
nice to see ya EO. not a true bender yet for me. but i am going to be holed up again Thursday with plenty of booze. another deep plunge below zero to sign off on February. so i again may become a nuisance poster beyond just being a serial one. 🙂
you are in a lighter mood and it shows Xty. welcome back!
Every time I sell a little schnitzel of silver, 50 cents higher than the last, it makes me feel all warm and happy inside.
(warning: gratuitous puppy picture ahead)
In some sort of bizarre coincidence, Barry linked this one today. It’s almost like he wants to get in on your conversation. I’ll let you guys pony up the $35.95 to read the study, but the abstract gives me all the confirmation bias I need. I never pay for anything on the internet. Ever.
Trolls just want to have fun
been a little dis-oriented lately, and i think my brain is full. …niece just called to tell me that her parents had way over ordered on girl scout thin mints, and
likes those. best to all. old joni tune.
i no longer believe in coincidence. the planet is waking up. i believe the cynicism of both Obama and the Tea Party in the USA mark an end to a 400+ year cycle of top down deception in the world. it is no wonder that the worlds dumbest and fattest were the last to get on board.
but you guys already know that i’m a nutter. 😛
so we meet again.
Dp, here’s more. This was posted today at the Daily Kos:
Simple Rules for Spotting a Troll
Pete, if you would just put some space between your text and your youtube link, you wouldn’t have to keep double posting. And even if you hit return a couple times before pasting, the spaces disappear, so go back to the end of your text and hit return one more time before posting. Then all should be well. Works for me.
And yes, thin mints are the best. I like mine kept in the freezer, with milk.
EO – if i could, i would hat tip your “Spotting a Troll” post 1000 times. but i digress. 😛
hello my friend. EO, i’ll try again but i’ve f’d it up every time so far.
[I have added a space, xty]
there’s no space between your text and your link.