It Seemed Like Such A Good Idea

 

(We were all afraid.  I tried the computer just to check and it was dead. We didn’t know what to do next. The girls cried.  Doug and I sat and just looked at each other.)

 xOx

The kids call me Roops.  It’s as good as anything I reckon.  I am one of the very few old guys they know.  I’m glad I’m around to give them a nudge in the right direction from time to time.  These kids have advantages over their peers just from hanging around here at the old radio shop.

You know, most of that electronic junk in my downstairs is kind of a joke.  It’s interior design.  None of them know what is functional and what is baloney. I get a kick out of that. It looks like an electronic graveyard in here.

When I wandered downstairs that morning I padded over to the real stuff and plonked myself down into my old chair and turned on the bubble machine, my pet name for my system.

I pinged Thumbienet.  I was hoping to catch up with Doug.  Nothing. This was not a major bummer yet, but I had to wonder why they were not all clustered around that crazy set OZ made learning about their world and how to type, already.

I waited around for a while. Maybe they were having a party over there or something.  I made breakfast. I ate my mush like a good boy.  I drank some of that instant coffee. I put sugar in both of them!

I checked again.  No messages.  I began to get a real hinky feeling up the back of my neck.  Something was not right. There was no good reason for them to be offline.  I hoped they hadn’t burnt the house down somehow.

I figured I should check with my bestie Shortie and see if he knew anything. He has a name, but I can’t say it. I call him Pete.  So how do I get ahold of Pete?  Well, it’s kinda zen you know?  I just sit very, very quietly and think of nothing but Pete and he picks up the receiver somewhere up there where the Shorties hang out.

See, the Lights are just manifestations or projections of the Shorties. They are a means of communication with us earthbound critters. Oh, they can do other stuff too, like a spot of warfare.  Remember those two Spookies they obliterated out in front of this place?  Yeah.  That.

Anyhow, Pete, just to make it easy for me sends me regular typed messages and I answer him the same way.  I would have a hard time maintaining a purely mental connection.  I’m too distractable. Maybe too stupid!

I had been sitting there with my hands on my knees thinking about Pete for a few minutes when I heard a message come in.  I get a little bell sound just like in the old days. I turned to my monitor. There he was.  He didn’t use any apps or platforms.  He just appeared on screen, pow! Just like in an old-fashioned horror movie! The ghost in the machine was Pete!

“In the Name of All Being, greetings,” Pete said. “You are all questions today.”

“Hi Pete,” I said. “You’re right about that.” I tried to focus on what the real kernel of my question was before speaking.  They are uncanny if you think about that aspect and maybe even a little daunting to talk to even if you do it all the time.

“Pete, I’m not hearing back from the kids.  You know about the internet that biological, OZ and his buds set up for them I assume.  Things were going fine.  Then this morning, nothing, and I am worried.”

“Yes, we knew, and we knew it was doomed to failure from the start. Totally vulnerable as a spider web. I’ll tell you why. It was wide open. As soon as it was formed, something else began to form over it, using the connectedness in a new way. There are still wicked forces in creation. Old powerful, hidden forces.  The war is not over.

“An artifact of their net grew out of it, becoming an anti-mind, like a hive creature.  It acquired a type of sentience. But it was obscene and power hungry. No human life could have survived if it had taken charge.”

“Wait a minute, Pete.  This false mind thing took over that quickly?”

“Yes, we had to shut it down.  It doesn’t exist anymore.  All Being would not allow it to continue. Those hundreds of others are no more.  Poor things.” Pete was silent for a moment. “Their bodies lie wherever they were when they went offline and perished. They were scattered all over Israel and some in Europe.”

“Is OZ gone too,” I asked him. I could just picture that scenario out at the house. The kids had become fond of OZ and would mourn him for sure. He had become more human in his affect as time went on and had taken more of an interest in their human lives. He still wore that big safety pin Jen had pinned on him to be able to tell him from the other others, and he seemed proud of his difference from the rest of them.

 

Awakening

We all gathered around OZ’s body where he lay on the floor.  We could see that he was breathing. Jen laid her right hand on him, and she prayed. How she loved that thing is beyond me.  But she did.  Pretty soon we all did too, Doug, Lou and me too.  It was a sad time, but also sweet in a way.

Bubby got up to take a look over our shoulders.  He laid his big black muzzle on Lou’s shoulder.  Then he threw his head back and howled, like we had never heard him howl.  Not ever!  His long note of dog urgency rang through the house and even outdoors.  He called again and again. We had never seen Bubby behave in this way.

Lou said, “look at his eyes!” She was pointing and had leapt up to her feet.

OZ’s black eyes were open.  They seemed a little different though.  His eyes normally had no more expression than two buttons would have, but now that was not the case. As he lay on the floor, he looked at each face over him, like he had never seen us before.

He sat up. We moved back, giving him some room.

“What am I,” he said. “There were so many, but they are gone now. I hear no one. But I am here. Why am I here?” 

Jen said “I think you are here to help us. You can do things no human can do! I think All Being brought you to us and also saved you from being just an other, OZ! You have a new life.”

He smiled.  OZ smiled and that is the absolute truth!  I had never seen such an awful smile, but a smile it was.  He giggled a little, like a little child. He scrambled to his feet and got back on his wooden chair.  He crossed his arms over his chest and fiddled with his big safety pin.

I will attest that was quite a morning.  We had to get to know him all over again and find out what was left of his strange abilities. I wondered if he could still do internet by himself.  I had read about hotspots in Roops’ books in his crazy front room with all the electronic junk.

Doug asked him about that, and OZ said “I’m not sure.  We will have to try to see what is left.”

Gabe had awakened from his morning nap and came wandering into the kitchen with everyone else.  He saw OZ sitting there and ran up to him and hugged his knees.  OZ laid his hand on the boy’s head and smiled around the room, looking from person to person.

“I will try to help you, I will do my very best!”

The whole novel linked here: In the tenth year of the pandemonium.docx

Pbird the hen and Phyllo the rooster

 

By our own Professor Farnsworth, who knows his chickens!

Pbird the chicken opened her eyes to a new morning. The human hadn’t come to feed her and her sisters yet and she was hungry. She picked and scratched at the ground near the feeder in hopes of uncovering a morsel one of the others had missed, but no such luck.

  She made a pass about the pen and casually made her way to her escape exit in the fence. Phyllo the rooster always kept his eye on her. He was a handsome devil with his sharp black eyes, red comb and waddles and a very attractive neck spray of feathers about his head. As he does, he followed her for a bit, dropped his wing and made a circle in front of her cutting off her path to the secret exit. “Whatcha doin lovely pbird," he said in his sexist rooster voice.

  “Oh nothing, just want to go on a walk about for a bit 'cause you know the grass is always greener and bugs more plentiful on the other side of the fence."

 
  Phyllo’s pupils went to needle points and tilting his head sideways, he said, “you know a way out?" “Why yes I do” said pbird, the most excellent hen of the bunch. “SHOW ME” he demanded. "Well, I don’t know" she said, "you didn’t ask very nice, perhaps you should try again?"

  Phyllo clucked and tooked and picked at the ground, picking up a small dead blade of grass and tossing it, he said, “roosters should never be denied a request especially from a hen, but you are one of the nice ones and your feathers are pretty and your legs are a nice white. Your toes are straight and feet aren't scaly, so I will try. Pretty pretty Pbird, would you please show me your escape for I, Phyllo, the red combed rooster, would like to see the greener grass and juicy bugs on the other side of the fence."

  "Now was that so hard," she asked. Phyllo strutted, picked a small stick up, tossed it and took a strutting turn around her again. “Oh my" thought Pbird the chicken, "GAWD is he a handsome rogue, perhaps I will sit for him one day." They made their way to that special spot in the fence that she only knew about. She stuck her head through the wire, then past her crop, next came the wings, she had to tuck them tighter and with a 'pop' and a loss of a few loose feathers, pbird was out. Phyllo was a little bigger, so he got a little stuck and as roosters do, he began to panic a bit. “I’m caught! I’m caught!!” almost causing the rest of the flock to raise their heads from the feeding trough, for the human had come to feed them.

  Pbird ran over and said “Shhhhh!!!” in chicken language, gathered his ample waddles in her beak and pulled. Phyllo too, made a small 'pop' and he was through. They quickly ran over the small rise to the greener grass and juicer bugs on the other side of the fence.

  Pbird went into search mode, beak to the ground and birdy butt up in the air and searching. Phyllo kept an eye out while she searched for a bit, perhaps she would find something and maybe he might take it from her. Then, right at his feet, his sharp black eye spotted something, it was a bug and what was that, a tender young sprout of something, bunches of them “Took Took Tookie” he went, to which call pbird came running.

  He scratched, she pecked, she scratched and he pecked and they had a good fresh breakfast as the great rooster in the sky intended all chickens to eat. Then Phyllo, out of the corner of his eye spotted a gray beast slowly roll by with a human in it. The beast came to a stop and the creature inside looked at them. "Pbird! Pbird! What is that?" "Oh Phyllo, you’ve seen a human before and this one likes to stop and look at me for some reason, he lives somewhere near in those barns humans live in. I think he’s ok, I think he likes us chickens. In my mind, he may have had some once upon a time like our human does and missed them very much." Phyllo, blew a strange note out of the holes in his beak, "bah" he said, "me thinks he looks like a human rooster and like all roosters, their intent isn’t usually good for us chickens."

  Pbird the chicken turned and gave Phyllo the side eye and said, "don’t judge you silly boy, just enjoy the fresh greens and bugs. He will go about his business soon." Then in the very next moment, the gray beast rolled on. Much like chicken kind, it was about to start its day too.

Through A Garden Gate

 It could be a merry little conundrum.

 All is One,

And yet a portal is a passage.

From one state to another.

Maybe it's illusionary.

And I'm merely stilled 

By the beauty of the thing.

For a garden gate built of roses and 

Summer would be a fine thing indeed.

Either in or out!

A Model Of Mechanical Efficiency

We were always assured that a person riding a bike was such an efficient mechanism that you basically got no exercise from it.  Now, it seems obvious to me that there must be a good reason bikes caught on like they did. Ahem.  Cough...

So. Obviously speed is an issue.  You plain get there faster on a bike, no matter how efficient it is.  You can carry stuff on a bike. You look very cool.

It has to more efficient than walking or running or no one would do it?  Would they? For the fun of it maybe.

I read a few exercise nut web pages.  They all describe the wonders of what a good workout you will get riding a bicycle. So, I assume that is true, if you ride far enough and long enough, but you will get there really efficiently!

The type of bikes we had as kids were really simple.  No speeds.  Just the one. But they worked.

Mechanical Efficiency in Cycling of Boys Seven to Fifteen Years of Age

My most exciting bicycle story is about the time my brother and I were riding down through a steep pasture.  Yeah. Anyhow there was a boulder in front of me and I was going pretty fast. I hit the boulder, went flying through the air and came down entangled with the bike!  It knocked the wind out of me!  Funny feeling.  Took a few seconds or minutes to start up again.  My brother thought I was dead!  lol!  Poor kid.

We also used to like to ride down the steep gravel hill near home no hands!  Parents did not know this.  We never mentioned it.  Also never crashed.  I guess angels must have attended us?

Got any good bike stories?

Looks kosher to me.  Yup.

Tattle Tale

 

Paternal Grandmother drawn from photo.  She would not approve of tattling!

tattle (v.)

late 15c., "to stammer, prattle," in Caxton's translation of "Reynard the Fox," probably from Middle Flemish tatelen "to stutter," parallel to Middle Dutch, Middle Low German, East Frisian tateren "to chatter, babble," possibly of imitative origin. The meaning "tell tales or secrets" is first recorded 1580s. Sense influenced by tittle. Related: Tattled; tattling. As a noun from 1520s. Tattler, the name of the famous periodical by Addison and Steele (1709-1711), means "idle talker, a gossip."

From our nifty link to https://www.etymonline.com. Which can be found at the bottom of the page.

*********************************

Did your mom use the word tattle? Mine did. My mother did not approve of the kid style blame thing. In largish families it can be a thing. But I never hear it anymore. A couple more words she used that I never hear anymore are meddling and mischief! Words for later.

I looked it up, just to be sure, and as expected it means to secretly expose someone’s wrongdoing to someone of authority for the purpose of tripping the wrongdoer up somehow, causing trouble for them. I would include doing it openly, not just in secret.

Apparently ratting someone out is now a good thing, or at least the expected thing. Think about all the Karens of the world leaping into the blaming fray. This behavior is often felt to be valiant even, by Karen and her sisters.

Often, I am given a word to chew on and Friday it was tattle.

I was thinking about the constructive nature of love making straight the paths, filling in the valleys and generally constructing an easy way to walk. Love fills in gaps and makes bridges.  It creates that which did not exist before.

Love does not tattle. Love does not cause extra trouble. I very seldom or in fact never have, ratted out a lousy waitress or some such because I figure she will sink or swim on her own without any input from me. I have Yelped a dangerous medical practice, but that is a different thing.

 Am I doing the kind of gardening that makes it easy to visit the garden, pleasant and smooth? Or am I rolling rocks in the way and digging little pits to catch the foolish in? Am I watching my tongue, that hot little flame of fire? Do I tattle on my brother or my sister? I have. 

Of course, we all get it.  Don't be a tattletale.  Be a keeper of the garden.

All Tangled Up

This thing of beauty is known as a Yarn Barf!

________________________!

I got interested in the word entanglement yesterday. I mean in the physics sense. I thought I might be able to understand it intuitively. I had notions fuzzily floating around in my head about what it might mean. 

I discovered a Scientific American article that does a good job of explaining, written by a physics prof in Sydney. 

Quantum Entanglement Isn’t All That Spooky After All 

The way we teach quantum theory conveys a spookiness that isn’t actually there. 

↹

Let me see if I can say it in a way that makes sense to me as a lay person. 

I think it’s about a connection between two things that persists even if they are not near each other, and that they have an instant common reaction to a stimulus even if they are far apart. 

Now I will quote the article: 

A typical article about entanglement tells us it arises when particles interact to create a “link,” which persists no matter how far apart those particles are. Moreover, actions taken on one particle instantly affect the other, or so we are told. But—and here’s the thing even many experts get wrong—quantum physics doesn’t say that. Quantum physics says nothing about how the world is. Instead, quantum physics only describes the experiments we do to test our theories of how the world works—it gives us probabilities for the outcomes that may happen in an experiment. The compulsion to interpret quantum physics concepts as prescriptions for physical reality derives from the unfortunate way we traditionally teach physics.

 

Ah, well, there ya go. It’s all conjecture. Or high-level inquiry that is.

*O*

I should have been thinking of interconnectedness of all areas of thought, or something like that. Sounds very puffy!

But what I am really picturing is something I realized back in school, and I enjoyed thinking about it.

One day it struck me that all my subjects in school were connected by their linked elbows.

I imagined all that we know and study, all that we do and experience as a great globe of some type full of passageways connecting everything. This was probably an obvious realization to come to. But I enjoyed picturing the interconnectedness of it all.

I should probably draw charts, but you all don’t need that.

Today, yesterday now, I watched a program on Chaco Canyon. Thinking of the place involves:

History

Archaeology

Drawing and charting

Astronomy

Photography

Digital publishing

Math

Chemistry

Well, you get it. Pick a subject. Any subject! It's connected to everything else!

A Collection Of Signs Found Out In The Wild

An Open Thread for Thursday

 I suppose that I have mentioned collecting signage photos.  I thought this guy's collection was especially memorable.  He seems to be having trouble with his neighbors. There were over a dozen of them.  Here are a few.

2012, somewhere in Washington State.  Does the word crank come to mind?  

He may be totally justified, but you must admit that they are fine examples of an outraged citizen's work!

The following sign stands alone!

Now, below here are some signs made by a citizen who is outraged by a pot farm nearby.  This was just up north of here!

Poor guy.  Once again, we just don't know what is really going on here.

But, below here is the prize of my collection!  It's old but good! lol. Eastern WA, I think!

So...we're out here.  We are making signs.  We will keep you apprised of truth and justice, doggone it!