Need A Beta Fix, Buddy?

Are you Beta yet, folks? Not me. I'm a devil, I'm waiting longer. I've heard it's improved some, but that's like saying it stinks a little less. More, more cleaning is needed! When the complaints reach a certain low level, I'll know when it's time. I hope.

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Twub Twank Stuff

He was a creep in a wet limousine, judging all the wankers and the hankers on the street. Some stood at the corners, others occupied the boulevard. Every one was better than: something or other. Which brought them at last to somebody's hurried, worried heart attack. It was a banker spanker's holiday, if nothing else!

How are you, then? Lost in the attic? Wasted in the basement? Turned loose in the alley? Are you licensed to do these things?

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Where Nobody Is

Gertrude Stein: "In the United States there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is. That is what makes America what it is."

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Malcontented

Why isn't a physician someone who studies physics?

signed,
A Physicist troublemaker.

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Golgotha

I feel this time like something not too stealthy, very thin and weak, creeping like a dog past Golgotha or some other infamous terrain where nobody wants to go or end.

A number of people on the Interspecies Internet choose to be cryptic, but since I'm one of them, I can't bitch about it. Of course, I'm not (usually) cryptic to me, so I guess that's how these others see themselves. I wonder if that's so? Can any of the wild animals communicate well enough to register their view? We lose a lot when we can't speak Dog, Cat, or Parakeet. Of course, I wouldn't even want to hear your turtle; that would be bound to take forever!

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Delusion

Dame Rose Macaulay: "It is a common delusion that you make things better by talking about them."

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What Day Is It?

I thought at first it was Sunday, I don't know why. Too sleepy-headed, I guess. Or perhaps because everything was quiet. And then when I saw Saturday indicated on someone's blog, I wondered what was wrong? I finally remembered that I'd lost track. I was glad to know what day it was. A free day, sort of? Not entirely. But still it's better to know what day it is. Blow me a kiss and send me on my way!

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Getting

I'm getting to where I don't much remember to get back to people, at least out here on the Internet. But I don't even know if that's a bad thing or a good thing, and if I don't know that, maybe it doesn't matter? What high goal am I trying to live up to, anyway? Do I get a crackerjack prize for it or anything? Not even a gold star in Sunday School! Of course, they probably wouldn't let me into Sunday School, for that matter. Maybe, but only because they don't know me. Meanwhile I'm getting rancid and so cold I can't even heat popcorn. The paparazzi can't get a Kodak moment in my presence, not even if I was humping one of their wives. It's terrible when we can't even depend on our preoccupation with moral corruption and degradation. Things are about as sour as they can get. Some of you out there are just delicious. But half of those would just get red-faced if I named them. And the other half would think it was just a joke.

Don't touch me. Don't stick your wet finger in an electric socket. Things could go wrong. I think they already have. I think I'll be getting to sleep now...

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Long Reach

There' s just not enough smut in the world. And toopthpaste, not enough toothpaste. And harlots, we're running low on harlots. We need them to use up all the toothpaste. Other than that, could anybody ask for more? I THINK not!!! Unless you want to kill me just before or just after--that would be asking for too much, but who knows, you might pull it off. God moves in mysterious ways when choosing enemies. For that matter, so I do. I just don't have the same long reach.

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Crap Rolls Downhill And Gathers Speed

I've heard some good things about Beta, though I'm still staying the hell away from it. I guess it's obvious enough that nothing will thwart Blogger. This shit is the shit that's coming, no matter what we think. Whatever good features they may have, I still don't see why they could not just add them and not rewrite everything. What did Jack Nicholson say in that movie?

"What if this is as good as it gets?"

This is it, but I'll hold off as long as I can. This may feel something like War, but it's not the other side that is vexing us; it's our own damn side wanting to give us dangerous vaccinations and explosives that go off in our pockets.

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I'm Listening

I am not eager to migrate to Blogger Beta, but I'm listening. I'm reading all the Blogger Buzz and Help Group questions and it may be that the damn thing is starting to sort itself out some. I am still reticent to "go" there, since I don't want to end up signed out of one thing when I sign into the other. Maybe it's like parachutists jumping from a plane (fornication optional), eventually you have to just decide to do it. I don't like it yet. But at some point I'll jump, I expect. Maybe I'm just getting whiney; at one point a couple of days ago I was an "expert" giving answers, and have now been reduced to being as ignorant as anyone else! I only know what I hear. But I'm still listening!

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Mid-Air Fornicating

"Fornicating In Mid-Air" generated some interest a couple of posts ago, although I'm sure if the interest was in eagles or in fornicating. Maybe a few cared for the combination of the two! I just want you to know I have no knowledge of fornicating in mid-air or in fornicating with eagles! Let's get that straight! Even if I was an eagle, I wouldn't pull that kind of shit. I'd get in a comfortable corner of the nest and do it til my eyes crossed! I can imagine that expression on a fucked-out eagle, can't you? Okay, I'm a pervert, I surely can!

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900 Posts

Out of nine hundred plus posts I've marked 53 of them as "pretty good". I think that's fair. Out of more than 900 posts, 53 doen't seem like so many. That leaves a large number that may stink on ice, like this one, but I'm not going to address that! I know, don't you wish I had something good to say? I sort of wish it myself. If I gave you a goose, would you give me a kiss? How would that be? Might be pleasant...

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Song Lyric Test

Who knows where the lyrics, "Why must you bore me to tears?" come from? I do, but I'm just checking. It was never Number One with a bullet.

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What's So Unpleasant?

Lillian Hellman: "Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth."

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Peanut Gallery

Until I came back to the computer this morning, I'd forgotten all about Blogger Beta. Reading the questions in Blogger Help Group I see that all the new questions are being voiced by people in collision with Beta. Who are these idiots at Blogger, I wonder? I mean the programmers, not the clients! I don't think I really want to know, either the programmers or the new program. Is that a threat of some kind? No, just another whimpering observation from the peanut gallery.

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Cry Baby Cry

I admit I sometimes say "fuck it" and break all my own rules. That's why you catch me here creating in Blogger edit. If it flips its' wig, I'll just be getting what I deserve. If things go wrong, well, I'm old enough to know better. So, cry, baby, cry! I'm sitting around counting up all the business I'm declining and delaying. If I fet them, I guess they'll run over me like a locomotive. Certainly, I'm loco enough, and I do need some motive! Like an actor in a film, I need some "motivation" just to be me! Doesn't sound sensible, does it? I've neve been very sensible. So, no great loss. Firefox is a great irritation to me. I guess I'd like to beat it down with a spatula like it was a bug who'd strayed into the kitchen. I wouldn't mind stepping on it when it hit the floor. I could always get it out with a broom or a shovel. Then a mop.

Blogger is going to give me a shit fit, I think, with their new improved Blogger Beta. I wonder if all the trouble with regular Blogger will clear up now or just be explained by this Beta version? It's a thing that computer programmers never take into account; the last thing that computer users want is stuff THAT DOESN'T WORK! And that's what beta means in its modern incarnation; stuff that doesn't work yet. I'm going to decline signing up for anything until some others go first. I don't want to be a guinea pig. I don't want to find that signing in is also signing out of something else. I don't give a shit how much right they have to say, "Oh, didn't you understand that?"

And I don't want to be standing there hollering, "No, dammit, you didn't explain that!"

"So sorry," they'll say.

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Milestones

Now it's 20,008. Passed 20 thousand sometime during the night or morning. I almost forgot to check it. I don't know who to give the golden ring to, but that's all right, the gold would have been pretty much phony! Oh me, oh my, no more milestones for a while. Unless they're sexual ones, in which case, it's none of your business!

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Well, it could be your business if you meant to help me with the Most Beautiful Bloggers Boinked contest this year. Hmm...?

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Golfer Over My Fire Place

I forget all the exact numbers. Somewhere in all these screens it informs me that my posts now number more than 900. And that my visitors are about to exceed 20 thousand! Boy, am I impressed. Watch out I don't faint. Somebody gimme one of those dollar-ninety-eight gold trophies. I won't even mind if it has a golfer on it. Just so it isn't chipped. It should at least be solid gold Paint, dammit!

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Fornicating In Mid-Air

I'm struggling toward 20,000 hits. Huff, puff! If you're reading it, I guess you're doing your part! I guess I can do it. It's less trouble than eagles have fornicating in mid-air!

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More Sidebar Squiggles And Antiquities

I don’t know it, but I suspect my sidebar has become too long for new visitors to pay much attention to it. Maybe old visitors don’t pay it much mind, either. But that’s what I assume, that familiar visitors know whether after reading the newest post they have any use for the 10 “Most Recent Posts” or for the color bars or for the “Categories List” or for “The Pretty Good Ones”. It’s hard to imagine that anyone is interested in all my “stuff”, and certainly not if they’re new to my blog. Like many blogs I’ve seen, mine demands a good deal of attention on your part to see it all and you might be tempted to blur your eyes and shake your head when you encounter my sidebar. I won’t say it’s not colorful, nor that it’s not full of Yippity-yap. Guilty on both counts. I’ve got everything but blinking lights! But I think I have some of those on Southern Exposure!

I used to try every HTML trick I could find. Now I’m a slouch. One reason I’ll never become a Real expert about blogger questions is that I don’t care for some of the topics and thus don’t much want to know how they work. It’s a terrible fault, but that’s the way it goes. My Help blog will never be complete. But hopefully it’ll still do a lot for the new bloggers.

One thing I didn’t figure out or even notice until lately: The 10 Most Recent Posts does keep working itself backwards if I select one of the 10. Not only is the post I select to read on a different page, but that new page's sidebar lists the NEXT set of 10. I never did really use this feature, but I guess I may like it and keep it!

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American Ammunition

We've got more than you do.

Who Cares?

I was trying to load an image to stupid Blogger just a while ago, but it was failing over and over again. I decided i didn't want to be in any hurry. I was just toying around. Also, I was starting to feel like a newbie. I don't need such aggravation unless it's an important photo. But maybe I don't need it, you know? That'll get me through today and maybe tomorrow. But after that, what then? Do I hit the roof? Might as well. Who cares?

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Rudeness (Who, Me?)

Eric Hoffer: "Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength."

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Benny the Bug

And The Girl With The Cunt

Something nasty, eh? Something obscene and nasty. Nope, I can't think of anything right off. We could talk about titties. But that's not obscene! Titties are Great! Almost without qualification. Let's see if I can think of anything else.

I remember years ago when I was first a street vendor in Austin. The other vendors were people I only knew slightly most of the time, though some were friends with whom I socialized. One young man named Benny sold jewelry out there; though he had long hair, I never thought of him as anything but a student or weekend hippie. He was just a young fool with hair and not exactly "enlightened" as I liked to think of the hippies.

Every once in a while, the street would be visited by a steeper grade of hippie--boys or girls who were living "deep in the woods" or in communes where the kids voted on everything and where people tried to "liberate themselves" from cigarettes or meat or alcohol or TV. One not very crowded day, a young hippie woman came along in somewhat drab clothes and wearing a loose skirt that rose up when she sat down on the sidewalk. She evidently liked the breeze, so she just sat there without concern for her exposed snatch. Benny couldn't stand it. He claimed that if she were beautiful, it might have been allright, but she wasn't attractive to him! So the view of her was just awful, according to Benny! I thought he was the ugliest thing I'd ever seen and she was nowhere close! I wanted to step on him like he was a bug, but then I realized he WAS a bug and there was great hope that somebody else would get him. I wonder if they ever did or if he's still poisoning the planet he's on?

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Del.icio.us Categories (Not)

I am dithering once again, you may note, with the del.icio.us tags! Though I am puzzled a little. I contacted Del.icio.us support, and they did help me, but only after they denied their tags were for categories. I got the impression that we who do so are misusing their product. But they didn’t get word to me soon enough. I’m already committed, dammit!

I assigned very few categories for TRS, so that you can bring up a page or two of Poems or Old-Poems or Fiction or Nostalgia, and wend your own way through the category. I don’t know if I’ll make very many more categories. At any rate, these were the important ones. If you see them lurking in the sidebar, that’s what they are. They aren’t hanging around to mug you and take your wallet, but just to take you to a place where you might have to pay a little attention. That’s fun, sometimes. If you’ve been reading my blog for a long time, you can ignore it all. If you only like my blog when I’m obscene and disrespectful, you can tap your feet and wait. I’m bound to come up with something.

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My Life So Far

What's coming up next? Is it fast, is it slow? Will there be reason to anticipate it? Or will it be like this? Oh, the doctor never says too much, but never forgets to send his bill. Things go on even if you wish they didn't. See that woman with the red dress on? She never forgets to shake that thing. Says she doesn't care a thing for sex any more, even though she wears the same curvaceous tight jeans she used to wear, only in a larger size. I'll be unable to ignore her, whatever she does.

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Friendship

Arthur Brisbane: "A good friend can tell you what is the matter with you in a minute. He may not seem such a good friend after telling."

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I DO NOT WEEP FOR MY FATHER

I cannot bring my father to life in writing,
Though I know some who have,
A mesmerizing sort of word dance
And I might invest similar motions with such dance
If only I could forget enough to remember it right.

I recently said to someone
Who was complaining of his father’s complaints,
“Why, my father was always fair with me,
he was always fair with everyone.”
I didn’t know that until the moment I said it.
But damn, it’s so true.

I should have my ass kicked for a lot of things,
I guess, but it’s too late to do me much good
Since my father’s been dead for 15 years
And everything I know about what he knew
Is just with me and in me and always better than me
And I must always remember it like that
If I'm to be any good at all.

rcs.
1st draft: 08/03/06
©2006 Ronald C. Southern

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Hell

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Can't remember who said that, if anyone. Bernard Shaw? The Bible? What the hell do I care? It's true enough. And some of us need to take it to heart these days. I don't have anything against candy; that was just the nearest road to hell I could find.

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Monkeys From Around The World

I recently added a number of blogs to the Intelligent Blogs list that most of you pay no attention to! I guess I finally added more new ones than I deleted, for my usual number is 10 and I see now it has swelled to 15! I used to have that many in the old days when I thought I could tolerate everybody. I have since learned different. I'm undependable, and besides being listed by me does not turn you into a Hollywood Luminary! Sorry. Can you imagine Bob Shieffer reading off the whole list on the next CBS Evening News? I can't, though I think it'd do us all in, really. Getting famous is dangerous if you don't get rich at the same time. So, those of you who read, take a chance on the new lunatics in my sidebar. Some of them are more fun than a barrel of monkeys; others, like me, are just monkeys!

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Disraeli Gears

Benjamin Disraeli: "My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me."

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