I walk Minnie every day for an hour and a half. We go 3.2 miles in that time. If we went at her pace, we would take the same amount of time to go 10 feet and every millimeter of that distance would be thoroughly sniffed.
I was going to get a tattoo on my 50th birthday, but I would’ve needed to decide what pattern to get, decide what part of my body to put it on, and research and find a good tattoo artist and that seemed like an awful lot of work.
An alternative would’ve been to join the Navy, get drunk, and get a tattoo in Manila done by a drunken tattoo artist with a dirty needle that would give me hepatitis. That is still an option.
The cashier asked me how I was doing and I said I’m good how are you and he said I’m good how are you and I said I’m good how are you and that was almost a Groundhog Day type situation.
“Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” is “Guardians of the Galaxy” meets “The Princess Bride.” It stars Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, and Hugh Grant. Fun.
Of all the great mysteries of the universe, I would like to know just one thing: When I’m walking the dog, how does she decide where the perfect spot to pee is?
It seems to be a rigorous selection process.
Thinking about a time I was sitting with a small group of people, and one of the women in that group invited us to a party at her house and said we would be free to use her backyard pool.
She added: “Swimsuits. Are. Not. Optional.”
And I thought, “But I do not want to go swimming.”
And that was when I realized that I had become a boring person.
My 15 minutes of badass literary scholarship
In another online community, somebody asked for the title and author of a story about humans encountering another race that seemes to live a simple agrarian life. When asked how they generate electricity, or other questions about advanced technology, the agrarian person responds that they don’t know.
Later, it becomes clear this other race is far advanced of humans, with great psychic powers. Asking them about electricity and such is like asking us about the best kind of wood to rub together to start a fire—something our distant ancestors knew but almost nobody today does.
Other people on the community had their guesses, even asking ChatGPT. But I said to myself, “That sounds like a story I read when I was a kid. The author was John Campbell.” And I did about 15 minutes of Googling and replied thus:
Sounds like “Forgetfulness” by John W. Campbell, writing as Don A. Stuart, in Astounding Stories, June 1937 https://archive.org/details/Astounding_v19n04_1937-06_-ibcbc_fiche-paper
I am feeling hugely badass about this successful act of Internet research.
The original questioner misremembered at least one key detail: The star travelers aren’t humans—they are aliens from a civilization in the distant future. They land on a planet called “Rhth” (get it?) and believe the simple agrarian folk to be the degenerate descendants of a once mighty high tech empire. They pity the simple agrarian folk, but then learn better.
The above link is worth following for the ads alone. The magazine has a gajillion small ads, and they are all like this:
I remember when I finally laid my hands on a reproduction of a 1939 Astounding Stories magazine. I had read so many essays by Isaac Asimov and others that talked about how the 1939-45 era of Astounding was the Golden Age of science fiction. At last! I thought. I have found a precious document!
And I opened the magazine, and my eye fell on the face of a shocked-looking, open-mouthed boy with the headline, “Did you say JOCK ITCH?!”
Also: Ads for anthropological studies of Polynesian sexual rituals. I suspect those studies did not appear in proper peer-reviewed scientific journals.
I’m beginning to think that carrying a distraction machine in my pocket might not be a great idea.