Category: OCF

04DEC2021 – Thoughts on the Day

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Well, here we are exactly three weeks before Christmas Day and despite the havoc that the pod people have unleashed on the world, I’m feeling kind of happy and even optimistic about what’s to come.  Why I’m that way is probably a combination of things.  Doubtless, knowing that the Biden administration is in disarray has something to do with it.  The fact that I’ll be spending several days with the kids and grandkids is also part of it.  Another part is that by December I’ve come to terms with winter and no longer feel the post summer gloom.  And finally, well, life is good!  Everyone in the family is in pretty good health.  We’re going to have another fantastic dinner soon and another one right after that.  The house hasn’t been foreclosed on.  We have enough money for food, clothes and even enough left over for some toys like the new camera I’m hoping to buy in January.  Any sane person would say I’m doing alright.  And even though I’m at least slightly crazy I’ll say it too.

So, what’s on the horizon?

I listened to a doctor in England who’s pretty sure that the omicron variant is going to be a very mild virus and should be the end of the farce we’ve been enduring.  He said it will be extremely transmissible and quite capable of infecting even the hyper vaccinated.  So, everyone will get this thing.  It will feel like the kind of virus that gives you aches and a dry cough and headache for a couple of days.  Then that should be it.  No huge number of deaths, no wave of hospitalizations except for the chronically ill and the really elderly.  So, in a month or three Anthony Fauci should be out of an annoying job as health nag of the world.  Hallelujah!  Of course, nothing is ever guaranteed but I’m guessing the weariness of even the Karens will drive this thing to its ending.  So that’s a good prospect.

Every year in the winter I’m always frustrated by the dearth of photographic opportunities.  After all, snow and ice sort of look the same whether I photograph it on Wednesday or Sunday so there is a futility to going out in the neighborhood.  Plus, I’m not a big fan of being cold.  Well, this year I’ve vowed that I’ll make a few treks around New England to try to find interesting snow (whatever that is).  Plus, I think I’ll set up a macro studio in the house and bring some interesting subjects inside to do the work in the comfort of forced hot water heating.  I’m interested to see if my 200mm Minolta macro lens will be controllable with a program I use to take focus stacks.  It allows the focus setting to be very gradually changed between shots.  I’m not at all certain it will work because the Minolta lens will be under the control of the LA-EA5 adapter which is nowhere near as precise as one of those lenses that has stepper motors built in.  But it’ll still be fun trying it out.  And that’ll be just one of the cool things I’m hoping to do with the A-mount lenses on the A7 IV camera once I get my hands on it.  Looking back on some of the photos I took on the A-850 DSLR with them I am excited to see what kind of results I can get in the spring.  But winter will still provide some opportunities.

I’ve been enjoying the movie reviews.  I think it makes a good change of pace from the political stuff.  Even the horror of Star Trek Season 3 can be fun if there is enough mockery involved.  Mixing science fiction movies with the old movies from the ‘30s and ‘40s seems to work.  But I’ll see if I can mix in some later movies just for variety.  I don’t want to get predictable!

I’ll have to do some reading into H. P. Lovecraft.  I’ve forgotten all the details of the stories and I’ll need those details when I riff on Lovecraft in my Dunwich newspaper articles.  I think I might try the “Whisperer in the Dark” next.

And finally on the fiction writing front I’ve made progress on my novel but what I’ve concluded is I need to carve out much more time.  I’ve got to get more disciplined.  I spend too much time just reading stuff on the net.  It’s way too much of a time sink.

Well enjoy your Saturday.

Praying Mantises, Children’s Books and Pa – Part 7 – The Next Generation

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Well as Milo intimated a month ago, our rescued Mantis has laid an egg case.

Currently the proud mother is still alive although I suspect that after laying her eggs her life span may be limited.  I’ll put the egg case in a cold area for the winter and then put it outside in spring.  Princess Sack of Potatoes will probably equate this phenomenon to the story of Charlotte’s Web that we recently watched.  Well, I’ll have to say the project has really paid dividends.

Here’s mom.

28NOV2021 – OCF Update – This’N’That

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Good morning my fellow normal people.  Welcome to another day of figuring out how to navigate Crazyland.  I looked through the articles this morning.  Same old, same old.  You know, things like Dementia Joe can’t figure out how gas prices went up and he’s asking the Justice Department to pummel the Law of Supply and Demand into submission.  Brilliant stuff like that.

I read an impassioned defense of woke-ism by some idiot who was re-animating slavery for the millionth time to justify anti-white racism.  So here we are a hundred and fifty plus years after slavery and somehow it’s still busy oppressing people left and right.

Alright, so let’s look at slavery.  Well, slavery is really bad.  So we had slavery here.  We don’t anymore but, yes we had slavery.  But you know what’s worse than slavery?  Cannibalism.  And you know where cannibalism was (and to some extent is) a real thing?  Africa.  All the way up to the present day cannibalism existed there.  Back in the 1800’s if two tribes had a war, the winners collected up the dead and the wounded and butchered them for lunch.

And there was plenty of slavery in Africa but when someone wasn’t that useful for work he went in the pot.  So if you were someone who was captured as a prisoner after a war and you had a choice between being sent on a hellish slave ship to a distant land to work your life away as a slave or have your throat cut and end up as stew which would you pick?

It’s a fair question.  I’m not sure what I’d do.  But these weren’t choices.  They were just the fortunes of war.  If the Arabs were offering a price for slaves that was above the market price for meat then the prisoners went on the boat.  If not they went in the pot.

The remarkable thing is we decided slavery was wrong on our own.  I think that alone is reason enough for all this woke nonsense to be refuted.  Comparing its track record to that of any other civilization that we know of, the Western world has been remarkably generous with other peoples.  The Arabs and the Turks kept slaves.  It never occurred to them to free them as a matter of moral duty.

Anyway it’s something to think about when the wokesters start yammering about slavery.  Of course I am waiting for cannibalism to emerge here.  I figure California or New York are the most likely places but who knows?  Maybe some artisanal entrepreneur right here in Dunwich could get the thing going.  They’ll probably put out a full-color magazine, well at least an e-zine, and maybe a cable show.  It really makes you think, doesn’t it.

I’m still suffering from the Omicron Variant.  I’m presently using a home-made ventilator to keep me alive.  It makes typing difficult but what can you do?  I went through the patent for Ivermectin and hope to whip up a batch after lunch but, once again, ventilator in the way.  The sun’s not out today so it’s pretty dreary here at the Compound.  In less than a month the winter Solstice will occur I’ll have to build the stone altar and sacrifice a shoggoth or a werewolf or maybe an ear of corn (inflation) at the appointed hour when the portal opens in the sky and Azathoth and the blind idiot pipers materialize in our space-time.  After they gorge themselves on the sacrifice, I’ll invite them in for a glass of eggnog and talk about what they’re planning for Christmas.  I hear Cthulhu already has his lights up and is inviting folks over to see them.  Considering his track record on eating guests, I think I’ll just wait till he puts up a photo on his site.

So I’ll have to be cured of this wretched virus by then or I’ll catch my death of cold outside.  I wonder what they’ll name the variants after they get up to Omega?  Anyway, I should have something interesting to write about later today.  Have a nice day.

24NOV2021 – OCF Update – Holiday Hours

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Well, we’ve reached the brink of the great feast and Camera girl is buzzing around like a bee cooking pies, cleaning here, there and everywhere.  Obviously I’ll have to try to appear busy myself or she’ll recruit me into this madness.

That being as it may, I anticipate a slowdown of output by me today and tomorrow.  If anything occurs that I just can’t resist ranting about I’ll pound something out but most of the nonsense going on currently can wait until I’ve had my turkey dinner and socialized with my descendants.

So I just want to wish all the readers a happy Thanksgiving.  I hope you have the chance to make the most of the long weekend and if it’s possible that you get to spend time with the people in your life who mean the most.  Enjoy the food!

07NOV2021 – OCF Update – This ’N’ That

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It’s been busy over here at the Compound.  We had the family together for a kid’s birthday party last night and all that entails.  It was a lively gathering featuring fake fossil dinosaur egg dissecting, laser tag, billiards and the traditional American pinata event.  I attempted to educate some of my descendants on the finer points of using a pool cue but the new method they adhered to involves holding it sort of like a javelin.  But they managed to have fun despite my pedagogic shortcomings.  It was nice to see this new generation of cousins making their own fun without the necessity of staring at a phone screen or drowning out their surroundings with some insipid music.  There’s still some hope for the future.

I’ve been glad to see that some of the folks on the site have contributed posts.  Just lately Neil and Tom and Jason and Chemist and the Fat Man have provided excellent content which I’m always in need of.  I’ll take this opportunity to repeat that any of the readers out there that has something he’d like to share should leave a comment or send me an e-mail to orionscoldfire@charterdotnet and let me know.  And it doesn’t have to have anything to do with politics.  Book, music and movie reviews are excellent topics.  Chances are it’ll fit right in with the spirit of how I run things and will add that much more interest to the site.  After all, even I get tired of listening to my fascinating words sometime.

Now that the Democrats were panicked by the 2021 elections into forcing the infrastructure bill through ahead of the “reconciliation” bill without the help of the “Squad,” I expect the pollsters to start claiming that now Joe Biden is incredibly popular again.  But let’s face it, gas is approaching $4 a gallon, food is outrageously expensive, people can’t buy the necessities they need and Christmas presents won’t be available for the holiday.  With all that and the vaccine mandates how could Dementia Joe not be an awfully popular guy?

Probably passing the infrastructure bill will remove the last bit of leverage that the Democrats have over Manchin.  Despite my earlier pessimism about it I now expect the reconciliation bill to die a merciful death over the Christmas recess and in January all those reps and senators will be trying to get reelected.  So that may be the end of Biden’s bill signing career.  I can hardly believe our luck.

I’ll have to say, the Democrat’s taking it on the chin in the elections and backing down from the reconciliation stance they took has cheered me up a lot more than I imagined it would.  Maybe it’s the holidays coming up and the death of the COVID panic that has me so happy.  But for whatever reason I just don’t seem as willing to spread the doom and gloom right now.  So, you’ll have to forgive me if I’m unpleasantly cheerful.  Expect to see more movie and book reviews coming up.  I’m in the mood to write some stuff more interesting than the depressing politics we’re surrounded by.  And I’ll continue my death march through season three of Star Trek.  Enjoy your Sunday.

 

Update 6:36 pm

I couldn’t resist adding this data point to Dementia Joe’s popularity poll

Poll              Date                Sample     Approve   Disapprove Spread

USA Today  11/3 – 11/5       1000 RV    38            59                -21

He is beloved.

05NOV2021 – OCF Update – photog’s Chores Day

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We’ve had a decided break in the weather.  Each night dips slightly below the freezing point (27F to 31F) but each day is sunny and in the low fifties.  I’ve used this warning from the weather gods to finish up some of my more time and weather sensitive chores.  So today I mowed the grass.  That’s the last cut for the year.  Now it’s time to winterize the mowers and move the snow blower to the front of the shed and try it out.  I’ve already swept and filled the pool shed with all the pool furniture.

I’ve removed the gigantic air conditioner from the first floor window using these cool three wheeled rollers, a big yard cart and some bricks to move it without tweaking my back (which is key).  I felt like Pharoah’s  construction engineer moving monolithic basalt blocks to build the pyramid.  Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration but I did learn a thing or two from the riggers I used to hire to install the really heavy equipment when we needed it done carefully.  There’s nothing like dropping a twenty thousand pound custom chiller package to blow the project budget.  Watching those guys do their job with the minimum of power equipment was highly interesting.  It took an experienced old guy, several block and tackle set ups, 4X4 and 8X8 wooden “shims,”  heavy duty pry bars, and one or two young guys with unbelievably strong arms, legs and backs.  It truly is an art and not a science.

To say I was mowing the grass would be an exaggeration.  Mostly I was shredding leaves.  My more fastidious neighbors collect these shredded leaves and mulch them because they have “lawns.”  I have fields that are mostly covered with various grass-like vegetation.  Cleaning up leaves when you live on the leeward side of a forest is sort of delusional.  I make a last pass about this time of the year and stop thinking of the grass until it starts annoying me in late May.

I still have a card full of projects to do but the grandkids are coming tomorrow.  We’re hosting a birthday party and I’ll have chores for that and also I’m too lazy to do too many things all at once.

Today I sent off my Sony LA-EA3  and LA-EA4 adapters to a used photo equipment store.  This will mostly pay for the LA-EA5 adapter I intend to use with Sony A7 IV camera I intend to buy in January.  Looking at what I could have sold them for on eBay gave me a pang of sadness.  In fac the two of them would more than paid for the new adapter with something left over to add to my fund for the camera but fussing with eBay is something I hate doing.  And buying there is bad enough.  I hear selling is fraught with problems and real risk.  So half a loaf for me.

I enjoyed the gag of calling my town Dunwich.  I think I’ll make that a continuing saga.  I like spoofing on Lovecraft’s mythical New England.  Expect to see more eldritch horror and small town minutia in the future.

I promise to make up for chore day so stay tuned and I’ll produce some good stuff soon.

Local Election Results in Dunwich

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Living as I do in the mythical New England town of Dunwich, election results take a little longer than they do in the outside world.  What with eruptions of elder gods and eldritch horror of nonspecific origin popping up incessantly it takes the election committee quite a lot of time to count the white and black pebbles that we use for voting purposes.  I mean when they’re distracted, they lose count and have to start all over.  And then there are the disqualifications.  If one of the candidates is discovered to have webbed fingers or toes or gills during the mandatory examination, then everything has to stop while the unfortunate individual is burned at the stake or crushed under a door stacked with large smooth stones.  Lately they’ve switched completely to door crushing because of the greenhouse gases emitted by the stake burning procedure.  Time marches on.  Of course, the runner-up is glad, as long as he isn’t similarly non-conforming.

Well, the point is we finally have our results and they are pleasing.  The stupid party was resoundingly re-elected and the evil party was gratifyingly defeated.  I performed an exorcism rite complete with incantations from the Necronomicon (or was it Comic-Con?) and rendered all attacks by the power of darkness null and void (in other words I paid up my property taxes).  And now I can expect to enjoy another two years of quiet, efficient, demonic public service by the good people of the stupid party as they do their best to hold the powers of the evil party at bay.

I intend to continue attending the local Republican Party meeting and find out if I can get involved in some less painful volunteer services.  I’d like to work with the election committee and find out how the sausages get made.  And in fact, I’d also like to find out what other functions I can help out around town.  I may be trapped here in Dunwich for a few years so I might as well make the best of it.

Who knows, maybe I’ll become an adjunct lecturer at Miskatonic University in advanced perpetual motion engineering.  We all have to do our best to save the planet.  After all, both Greta Thunberg and Cthulhu are depending on us.

Election Day 20221 – Open Post – Leave Any Comments on the Elections Here

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As much as elections have now become a sort of joke, I still didn’t want to miss any interesting goings on or thoughts.  So leave comments below and we can share the sad, comical or  ironic news or we can enjoy just plain schadenfreude depending on the outcomes and circumstances.

One thing for sure, if anyone listens to the network and cable coverage many false and stupid things will be heard.  But every once in a while something true sneaks through.  So pass along any items that strike you as interesting or entertaining.

9:18 PM Update

Youngkin (R) 1,249,276     54.5%
McAuliffe (D) 1,028,893     44.9%
Blanding (L) 15,175             0.7%

With 80% of the votes counted Youngkin should be a lock.  But who are we kidding?  This was exactly what went on in Pennsylvaina last year at this time   So let’s see what crap they pull later.

12:03 AM Update

The vote count has been held at 93% for about an hour so I guess that the fix will be in and we’ll have to wait until they can fabricate the requisite number of fake votes.  Interestingly, NJ has come out strong for the Republican governor candidate.  Can he overcome the fraud.  I’ll say unlikely.  Well I think I’ll call it.  When it comes to fake elections I find it unappealing to lose sleep.  So good night all.

Praying Mantises, Children’s Books and Pa – Part 6 – Extra Innings

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Last night I read that this week we’re expecting a hard frost.  Well, it’s November after all and nothing unusual about that.  I mentioned to Camera Girl that I saw a dragonfly circling the yard the other day and now it’ll be the end of his time with the frost.

This morning Camera Girl was getting ready to go out on an errand and she said she’d stop at the top of the driveway and put a letter in the mailbox.  I said I need some air.  Give it to me.  As I was walking back toward the house she is walking toward me instead of driving out in her car and yelling something excitedly.  She is an enthusiastic woman.  What she was saying was that she saw a praying mantis sitting on top of a gallon water jug that I had left on the porch.  She asked me to catch it and save it indoors.

And sure enough, there it was.  I scooped it up and put it in a convenient cage (the former home of one of my grandsons’ hermit crabs).

 

 

And the new plan is to see how long he can live in an indoor environment.  I’ll try to offer him raw hamburger but if that fails we’ll get some crickets at the pet store.  Well, Princess Sack of Potatoes will get a chance to study a praying mantis more closely than I thought.

30OCT2021 – OCF Update

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Today I spent a good chunk of the day on fiction writing.  And it was very productive and I think successful.  But the trade off is no time for web site work.  I’m going to have to get much more efficient at splitting my time between the two tasks.  Tonight I am employed watching the 1922 and 1979 versions of Nosferatu.  The original is a silent film that is without a doubt a puzzling experience for the modern audience.  The film quality is terrible, the special effects are non-existent and the acting is highly stylized if I want to put it politely.  The 1979 version is titled Nosferatu the Vampyre and was directed by Werner Herzog.  I just started it but it looks like it could be okay.  I hope to have the review out tonight.