Tag: OCF Update

15JAN2021 – OCF Update

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I have had a an account on Gab since 2016 but stopped using it because it was a pretty chaotic.  I’m going to try posting there again to see if I get any feedback there.

This week will be another circus as the Dems pretend that Dementia Joe is the target of an army of ninja assassins who will do anything to derail the great Biden restoration.  I will be studiously ignoring all of that nonsense.  I’m just waiting for the impeachment farce to play out so that I can collect the names of Senators who need to be primaried.

I have been re-reading Homer’s Odyssey (Fitzgerald’s poetic translation).  It is a great story and reminds me that the timeless story of a brave man and a faithful woman facing the adventure of a mad world still has something to say to us today.  But it was so strange.  The sunburned Aethiopians were mentioned but at no point did Zeus get around to giving the rest of the Olympians a struggle session about how Sunburned Aethiopians Lives Matter.  And shockingly, even though Odysseus was accosted by several goddesses during his wanderings not a single one of them was a trans-goddess.  Well, I’m sure the publishers will write one in.

When I get through I’m going to start reading J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy.  I heard they made a movie out of it which kind of scares me.  But I’ve heard it’s interesting.

And I’ve started re-watching the TV series Justified.  Camera Girl and I agree that there just doesn’t seem to be a new show that’s anywhere as good.  Just proves that good writing trumps everything else in drama.

30DEC2020 – OCF Update – End of Year Roundup

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Well, I’ve posted my New Year’s Resolutions and now I will do a review of the site content and select my favorite photos, quotes, and posts from the last twelve months.  There are bound to be some surprises in there.  Hopefully I’ll post them today or tomorrow.  I’ll try to keep bitter irony to a minimum because it’s best to start the New Year as optimistically as humanly possible.  Hope is a flickering candle and should be protected from the cold wind of reality as well as can be.

And just to get the ball rolling on my endeavor here is the photo of the day from last January 1st.  This definitely won’t be a best of but it is the first picture of 2020.

23DEC2020 – OCF Update – Christmas Holiday Notes

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Well, that last post ( The Deplorables Are Waiting for a Sign ) must have hit a nerve.  I think a whole lot of people are just as fed up.  And as I said I think they’re right.  Words aren’t going to change anything so what’s the use of a lot of talk.

So I think I’ll take a couple of days and enjoy some really splendiferous food out of Camera Girl’s kitchen and spend some time with the family and think a little bit before I pontificate.  In the absence of a successful action to send Creepy Uncle Joe back to the cracker factory I think that local actions will be the only things that do any good.

I may have some reviews and maybe some links if anything good shows up but I’ll spend the next couple of days enjoying life.  I hope you do too.

Merry Christmas

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19DEC2020 – OCF Update

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The Christmas season is upon us here and it is taking its toll on my writing schedule.  But I’ll crank somethings out as soon as something interesting catches my attention.  In the meantime I’ll be providing movie, music and book reviews as I finish them.

The election and its aftermath are the big question on everyone’s mind but I’m already focusing on how the two camps in our country will begin dealing with each other.  I’m expecting that there will be a reaction to the election fraud in some major way.  The idea of a new party is one version but some kind of organization will be needed and also a clear plan for making the needed changes to who represents us.  I’m also interested to see who step up to become the leaders of our new movement.  President Trump, of course will be in the forefront.  But what needs to be seen is who are the leaders for the future.  We also need governors and senators who aren’t losers.  No more McCains, no more Romneys.  And we need new media that won’t lie to us and stifle our voices.

On a personal note Christmas Eve and Christmas are shaping up nicely with Lasagna on the Eve and a Roast for Christmas.  And it looks like we won’t have bitterly cold weather but actually quite warm (50’s).  And I assume all you folks out there are spending less time on-line and more time with your holiday plans too.

 

So hang in there and I’ll have some interesting content soon.

 

 

10DEC2020 – OCF Update – Things That I Am Trying to Figure Out

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Output’s been slow the last day or so because I’ve been working on some bigger fish.  I’m starting an sf&f book that I’ve been kicking around for a while.  It’s sort of a combination of sf and fantasy.  It always gets blurry when you start adding multiverses and immortals.  And that’s fine as far I’m concerned.  If you consider the ramifications of things like quantum superposition then it’s hard to say that reality draws a clear line between science and magic.  But it’s been fun and I’m making pretty good progress on both the outline and the beginning of the book.  But it has cut into my blogging time lately.

Also, I’ve been trying to do a little more analytical thinking about our present political situation.  We may have reached the point where yelling at the top of our lungs for people to wake up is no longer a useful task.  I think everyone who isn’t stupid or evil has acknowledged that our government is hopelessly compromised against us.  We need to switch gears and now focus on concrete plans to change the status quo.

And guess what, that’s not the easiest thing in the world to figure out.  It’s not just one thing.  It’s a million things.  We are up against an almost monolithic structure that is intent on destroying our way of life.  Individual defensive and offensive actions against such an opponent are so microscopically weak that they border on futility.  It’s obvious that organization is the key to expanding our impact.  But what organizations exist and which can you trust?

That is the kind of research I’ve been doing and it takes a lot of time and doesn’t provide instant results.  But there is no way of getting around the analysis.  So even though I enjoy ranting and raving and even though I think there is value in providing moral support and personal testament on the day-to-day events in the news I’m also looking to find answers to the questions we all have.  Is there an organization that is making progress against our enemies?  Is there an organization that can help us if we are attacked?  Is there a resource for finding allies in the different activities of our lives?  Such as religion, education, family activities, entertainment, sports, literature, professional societies, legal help, political organizing.  What corporations are on our side, or at least have made a point to remain neutral?  What news or social media companies will cater to us?  If any of you have done similar searches feel free to leave something in the comments that will provide a lead in my search.

I know this is a very long-term project so I try to keep it from dominating my day.  But at the same time, sometimes I have to follow a white rabbit pretty far down a hole to find out if he’s real or not.  So that’s what I’ve been busy with lately.  And I have the real-life stuff going on like all of you.  Christmas is coming up and we have things to take care of, and end of year stuff to attend to.  There are the young who need to be taught and the old who need to be remembered.  And Camera Girl is there to roll her eyes and shake her head in disapproval and attend to the ordering of her domestic universe, which she believes gives her authority over all of my world.  Hah!

24NOV2020 – OCF Update

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First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to all of my fellow Americans out there.  I know we’re all living through the horrors that the Left has cooked up for us.  The lockdowns, the rampaging psychopaths and finally the fraudulent election plot.  It may seem insane to even talk about a happy anything but I refuse to let these horrible people rob me and my family of at least part of the joy that the holiday is supposed to provide.  My family gathering won’t be as large as some years but it will still be joyous and include children and grandchildren and a whole lot of turkey and other fattening food.  I hope to introduce my two year old granddaughter to the March of the Wooden Soldiers, Gulliver’s Travels and the art of getting the larger piece of the wishbone during the contest.  So please make sure to have some joy on Thursday even if it has to be by phone or video call.  After all generations of Americans have had to delay gatherings because of war and other emergencies.  We can hope that the present travesty will be ended some time in the near future if for no other reason than because a vaccine is imminent.

Secondly, I want to say that content may be a little sparse here because of all this merrymaking.  I intend to put out posts as often as possible but usually there is a lull in news and in web traffic during the holidays so the resource and the need may both lag to some degree.  But I intend to put up various reviews of movies, tv shows, books and other items that I think will be of general interest.  And I will continue to look for content from guest contributors.  So if you have something you’d like to contribute leave a note in the comments and I’ll get back to you.

Thirdly and lastly, I’d like to just address the election situation.  Many gloom and doomers seem extremely eager to throw in the towel.  They call me every day with some latest disaster that they hope will convince me that I must join them in the ranks of the defeated.  I’ve asked several of them whether they’ll get some kind of early bird special bonus for conceding now rather than wait for the actual resolution.  I have to say I really don’t understand why they’re in a hurry to concede the election to Joe Biden.  That seems like a situation that I would want to delay for as long as humanly possible.  But to each his own.  Anyway, I’ll allow President Trump and his legal team all the time they need to plead their case before the Supreme Court.  I think that anyone who claims to know in advance how that decision will be made is mistaken.  My opinion, and it is just that, my opinion, is that the odds are exactly 50/50.  So I’d prefer to enjoy Thanksgiving and let the process play out.  There’s plenty of time to react to the facts on the ground once they are.  So I’ll wait until there’s something interesting to discuss and then I will.

14NOV2020 – OCF Update

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Pardon the dearth of posts in the last few days.  Like everyone else I have been pondering on the reality and circumstances of our troubled land.  I was contemplating waiting on the Supreme Court’s decisions on the election fraud appeals being submitted for their decisions.  But I think I will write a essay on the path forward without regard to whether the Supreme Court does its job or not.  I no longer think that further proof is needed to convince the reasonable men among the American people that there is no longer one law that applies to all Americans.  And what we have to decide is what we want to do about that.  That’s what I will be working on.

I also have some more movie reviews.  I have a book review of Jim Butcher’s latest addition to his Dresden Files’ series, “Peace Talks.”  I don’t think I have done reviews of this series before so maybe this will require a review of the series overall as a start.  And as the holidays near I think music and movie reviews for holiday themed works will be forthcoming.

I have been very negligent on the photography front.  I’m still posting photos of the day from back in the summer.  That is because photo work takes a bunch of time to prep.  I keep promising to put together some larger posts on technique and various subjects but I’ve been unable based on time.  I have promised myself I’ll have to do better.  And I will.

And as promised I’ll get guest contributors busy on some things outside of my areas of expertise.

So once again apologies for the drought but things will improve.

Barred Owl, Sony A7 III, Minolta 200mm f\4 Macro lens

10NOV2020 – OCF Update

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As I mentioned recently I’m waiting for the Supreme Court’s decision on the President’s petitions to question the votes in the various states where fraud was most egregious.  I’m not questioning the status of honest government in the US.  That’s all settled in this banana republic of a country.  What I want to know first is whether there’s any hope of repairing some of the damage by legal means.  Once I know that I’ll be able to speak about what the paths forward look like for me.

I will say now that the idea that anyone thinks Joe Biden could be the president is an absurdity that is more damning than the fraud that his partisans were willing to commit with impunity.  Joe Biden is an abomination in more than one sense.  Not since Caligula elevated his horse to the rank of senator has a less qualified and more repugnant candidate been presented to the much suffering people of this planet.

In less distressing news, I finally got a copy of Jim Butcher’s latest volume in the Dresden Files series, “Peace Talks.”  This is, I believe the sixteenth book in the series and it’s been six years since the fifteenth book came out.  It’s an urban fantasy series that highlights all types of supernatural creatures from three different types of vampire to several kinds of werewolves to almost godlike elemental forces.  All of these creatures seem to spend most of their time bothering Harry Dresden in his seedy Chicago office where he is the only practicing wizard that consults with the Chicago PD.  I’m really looking forward to Harry’s troubles.  No matter how much he is tortured by the baddies he always manages to get a joke into the dialog.  That’s the spirit I admire.  Plus I believe volume seventeen is the end so I’m looking forward to the payoff.

Things have gotten more and more bizarre in the political world but I do want to say that I admire President Trump for showing the stamina and guts to push forward and challenge the crooks who are actively working to steal the presidency of this country.  I also want to say that other than a few good people like Tucker Carlson Fox News is as dishonest as CNN and MSNBC.

So hang in there all you folks in the real world.  We will have a path forward soon and it will be a path to better things and better days.

31OCT2020 – OCF Update – Happy Halloween

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As is always the case in New England, the weather here is almost always annoying and always bizarre.  Halloween makes me think about trees full of yellow and red leaves and pumpkins in the garden and kids running from house to house getting candy.  Instead here we get 4 inches of snow and trees full of leaves get weighed down by all the snow those leaves will hold.  And when those overloaded branches crack some of them take the power lines.  So that’s what trick or treat looks like around here.  But I do enjoy complaining about New England weather so I guess there is a bright side to it.

I’ve been trying to be cautious about my optimism on the election but it’s getting more difficult.  The tenor of news coming from the official organs of the Democrat establishment, (CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WP, and the tv networks) really doesn’t sound very hopeful for Creepy Uncle Joe.  Even the “good” news sounds like them whistling past the graveyard.  Now maybe 2016 has permanently traumatized them and provided some much needed hesitance to embrace polls that have been shown consistently biased in only one direction.  But I’ve got to tell you that when the black celebrities start flirting with endorsing Trump and Hispanic polls start veering dangerously high for the President it gets harder and harder to see Joe winning.  I and my cronies will spend Election Night overeating and discussing the results as they come in.  I’ll open up a post for comments and will update the post with thoughts, snide comments and hopefully links to video of suicidal leftists.

Happy Halloween.  I’ll continue to review horror and sf&f movies right through the holiday and beyond.  I always enjoy the fun of seeing old movies I haven’t seen in decades and praising them or mocking them (or both).  I still haven’t gotten the resources together to review the movies and books of the Thomas Harris (Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, etc.) series completely.  Some of the books are no longer around the house (you have to get rids of some things) and I haven’t seen some of the movies in years.  But that’s still on the radar.  Because of the movie reviews and the election I have been a little remiss on my Star Trek reviews but that will be fixed soon.

And finally, I have been talking about how I think the COVID crisis will be allowed to peter out once the election is over.  Currently New England is in full blown panic because testing is showing a spike in new cases.  If my theory is correct, the state governments and media will discover that COVID has suddenly become much less dangerous.  I’m dying for that to be so because I would love to salvage at least Christmas this year.  Let’s see.

So, my good friends out in the real America, stay tuned and and stay well.  The best is yet to come.

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