Mitch's Blog

Minnie is on a prescription diet now and we’ve switched her to a vegetarian brand of treats, called Fruitables. Minnie loves them even more than her previous treats. I tried one and they are DELICIOUS.

I type on a keyboard on my Mac all day, either on a desk, table or lapdesk. Often I want to write but not like that. Sometimes I want to capture a thought while walking the dog or shopping or running errands. Alternatives:

• Thumb-typing: Slow, error-prone.
• Voice dictation. Everybody slags on Siri, but I think it’s pretty good. Are there better options? If so, what are they?

Maybe I just want to get better at handwriting in a notebook and then I scan it in or retype it. But I am rubbish at organizing my notes after I’ve captured them and I fear a notebook would fill up with writing I never look at again.

Give me some advice, please!

Historians and journalists love to speculate on what was the MOST! CONSEQUENTIAL! ELECTION! OF! OUR! LIFETIME! But I recall an interesting discussion a few years ago about what was the LEAST consequential Presidential election of our lifetimes?

The answer: Clinton vs. Gore, 1996.

I voted for and supported Clinton but if Gore had won it history probably would have not turned out much different. We would have had less noise about oral sex, but maybe Gore’s opposition would have ginned up some silly controversy to harry him with (though it probably would have been less titillating than Monicagate).

Microfiction about AI gone rogue, with an outcome terrible to contemplate.

I had a great time marching in the La Mesa Flag Day Parade yesterday with the La Mesa Lodge 407 Free & Accepted Masons, and enjoying a delicious lunch and fellowship afterward.

I missed getting a good photo of Deadpool, Superman and a women in a red-white-and-blue gown with like tentacles for hair, marching together. What do those things have to do with Flag Day? Deadpool isn’t even American — he’s Canadian! Who cares? ‘MURICA!!

And there will be no Christmas special this year, but the show will return, presumably in 2027 or later.

I have mixed feelings. RTD was the man who brought the Doctor back to life more than 20 years ago. He and his team were brilliant. And that was my introduction to the Doctor; I never got into the series in the 20th Century.

But the previous two seasons, with Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor, didn’t work for me. Nor did Jodi Whittaker’s seasons, nor Peter Capaldi’s overall, though he did have some excellent episodes and arcs. The last Doctor I loved was Matt Smith, and he left the show in 2014.

I’m ready to give the show a good long rest. But I’ll give it another try when it returns.

Be sure to use AI when making
your next, I don’t know, meal plan,
for example. Definitely do not call
your friend who loves to cook and ask her
for her favorite recipes or tips or ways
to save time making meals,
because you will end
up talking for longer than you had hoped,
hearing, perhaps, about her father’s cancer
diagnosis or how lonely she’s been or even
what she’s planted in her spring
garden and then lost with the early frost.

Read the full poem here