Category: Random Thoughts

Seriously, Siri ?

The features on K’s car surpass those my own car possesses.

Specifically, the built-in USB port allows my phone to synch with the car radio.

When driving alone, I play my music and podcasts through the stereo system.

It’s the only time I can choose the soundtrack.

Supernatural Impala Music QuoteK is a Supernatural fan, but this did not go over well when I tried it.

I think it’s one of those things that only works in television or movies, not real life.

 

Anyway, back to my story.

 

You see, things don’t always work like they’re supposed to.

Or rather, they work exactly like they’re supposed to.

Either way, interesting things happen.

Case in point: the Wednesday night pizza run.

 

I ordered the usual.

For K: bacon and pineapple, creamy garlic Parmesan sauce, pretzel crust, barbecue drizzle.

For me: pepperoni and mushroom, premium crushed tomato sauce, hut favorite crust.

Yes, we ordered Pizza Hut.

This is both supper tonight and lunch the next day.

IMG_3249

 

But my story has nothing to do with pizza, my story involves the sound system.

There I was, happily listening to The Christian Humanist Podcast – “Exploring literature, philosophy, theology, and other things that human beings do well; taking the question at hand seriously and ourselves not at all.” – when the volume lowered and my phone kicked in.

I expected a call; instead, Siri delivered this:

Bad SiriSiri, what on earth!?

What demons have possessed you thus?

And then the answer came: it wasn’t a fluke.

Everything worked exactly as it should – except Siri looking for strip clubs.

Earlier that day, while I updated my iPhone, I turned on the “Hey Siri” function.

IMG_3246As Nathan, David, and Michial discussed the merits of Literary Theory, Great Books Theory, and Literary Criticism, Michial uttered something like this:

I don’t think I’ve done any serious work for seminar papers or anything like that – presentations – on a work that I did not actively love and for which my argument could not be boiled down to “Here, Audience, is why you should love this.”

Michial Farmer,  The Christian Humanist Podcast,  E. 21: Literary Criticism

Siri, muffled by a sweater and two pizza boxes, recognized “Siri” in “seriously” and turned on; the next few words would have been garbled, so it made a good logical haphazard guess.

Bad Siri

Needless to say, I turned off “Hey Siri” as soon as I could.

 

Have any Siri hilarity to share? Do so in the comments!

 

 

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I Saw the Sign

I noticed this illuminated glass sign while out practicing my night photography:

 

Omarks at Night

 

Now, I know I see color differently than everyone else, but nothing else I saw this week was more vivid than this sign and the bright lights against the black city streets.

 

With all this talk of signs, how can you not think of this:

 

 

 

Don’t forget to follow me on:

 

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Twitter – where you can see my thoughts in 140 characters or less. Also, funny retweets.

Down the Toilet?

Yesterday was going great . . . until things started to go down the toilet.

 

A panel of aluminum siding broke free and threatened to come off.

I fixed it before the storm by getting up at 7:00 and nailing it into place.

While my wife was trying to sleep off a migraine.

 

 

The internet guy arrived exactly on time.

 

He called before he came.

He completed the install in under an hour.

He ran wire from the street and under the house.

He attached a box to the house.

He showed me how to work the system.

 

He didn’t clean up after himself the way the video claimed he would.

Which turned out to be a blessing:

Wife couldn’t connect her tablet to the WiFi.

For what it’s worth, she fixed it without me.

 

 

It rained, and we need the water.

But it made me have to go to the bathroom.

When I came out, my wedding ring was gone.

 

I’d had it moments before as I packed up my laptop.

Not There.

 

Soapy water made my hands slick, maybe it was in the sink.

No Luck.

 

Perhaps it got stuck in that little divot in the toilet –

the one right before water enters the p-trap.

Nope.

 

Maybe – just maybe – it settled out in the grease trap.

Conveniently uncovered due to a previous backup.

Definitely not.

Also, gross.

Very gross.

 

At that point Wife called.

Where are you? Mr. Tom’s ready to eat.

 

I told her.

 

Look [she said] it’s just a ring.

A sterling silver ring we got at Wal-Mart.

A ring with no special engraving.

 

I know you’re upset, but it’s nothing to worry about.

These things happen.

Look at it this way: now you can get one that actually fits.

 

Now, if it had been my ring, it’d be a different story.

And it would be.

Her rings are much more expensive.

Just as they should be.

In my opinion, anyway.

 

Later that night:

I can’t believe you flushed it; how dumb!

She’s picking at me – she isn’t being mean.

 

This morning:

I get up to make her scrambled eggs.

She gets up to get dressed.

She looks for a sweater – it’s cold where she works.

My ring falls out of the sweater.

The sweater that was with her yesterday.

The sweater that wasn’t even in the house when I lost the ring.

 

Huzzah!

 

Don’t forget to follow me on:

 

Facebook – where I share news stories, articles from other blogs, and various and sundry miscellany that happens to catch my eye. It’s stuff you won’t see here! Well, mostly.

 

Instagram – where I show you my Life in Motion and share quotes and such. The widget only shows my last three photographs – don’t you want to see them all?

 

Twitter – where you can see my thoughts in 140 characters or less. Also, funny retweets.

Sunday Snapshots

So, what did I do this week – apart from editing PowerPoints, creating projects, and working on next school year in general? Well, I . . .

Attended the North Carolina Symphony:

 

Sadly, they skipped Sibelius’ Valse Triste, Op. 44.

Which made me sad.

My wife says angry.

I say sad.

Enjoyed reading in the hammock by the water at my in-laws:

 

Treated myself to a few inexpensive indulgences:

 

I got my donut on National Donut Day; did you?

Assuming, of course, that you live in a country where it’s observed.

I know the United States and Australia do,

does anyone else?

 

That calzone cost less than $5

The ingredients are bought fresh and the dough is made in-house.

Add a sweet tea, and there’s lunch for under $6

So much better than fast food!

Practiced my night photography:

 

Right after I photographed the spider, a small insect flew into the net. I tried taking a picture of the spider as it attacked its prey, but it didn’t turn out at all. If I hadn’t seen it happening, I wouldn’t know what I was looking at.

I actually took one more night shot, but I’m holding off on sharing it; it may show up for the Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge: Vivid.

What did you do this week?

 

Don’t forget to follow me on:

 

Facebook – where I share news stories, articles from other blogs, and various and sundry miscellany that happens to catch my eye. It’s stuff you won’t see here! Well, mostly.

 

Instagram – where I show you my Life in Motion and share quotes and such. The widget only shows my last three photographs – don’t you want to see them all?

 

Twitter – where you can see my thoughts in 140 characters or less. Also, funny retweets.

The Worst Day of My Life

Meredith Broadside

via www.hmscavalier.org.uk
via http://www.hmscavalier.org.uk

My adopted grandfather, Mr. Tom (USN 1938-1957), remembers D-Day:

Mr Tom Enters the Navy 1938I was assigned to the Meredith*, an American destroyer out of Plymouth England. She was new – so new parts were still wet with paint. As at Pearl, my duty was the engine room. The Meredith wasn’t transport, she was a destroyer; we shelled the shore to soften it up for the landing. We stayed there in the [English] Channel for the entire day and the next, that’d make it June 7 when we were ordered to change position. I don’t recall where we were going; regardless, we struck a mine. That brand-new ship struck a mine and threatened to break in half. We ended up abandoning ship and I spent the night in the English Channel tied to my buddies so we wouldn’t drift. There was fuel all over, some of it ignited. One of my buddies [name redacted] was burned so badly he knew he was dying. He gave me some effects to pass on to his girl and some of the others started accusing me of robbing the dead. What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to say? Well, we were picked up in the morning and I was shipped on to Scotland for recovery before being sent back to the States for a spell. I really can’t describe it. D-day was the worst day of my life. Worse than Pearl. Worse than the day my wife died. It was the absolute worst day of my life.

USS Meredith – navalwarfare.blogspot.com
USS Meredith – navsource.org
USS Meredith – wikimapia.org

*You can read the official Commander’s Narrative here.

 

Don’t forget to follow me on:

 

Facebook – where I share news stories, articles from other blogs, and various and sundry miscellany that happens to catch my eye. It’s stuff you won’t see here! Well, mostly.

 

Instagram – where I show you my Life in Motion and share quotes and such. The widget only shows my last three photographs – don’t you want to see them all?

 

Twitter – where you can see my thoughts in 140 characters or less. Also, funny retweets.

Thoughts Brought On by Reading Old Books

First, a shout out to Erik Kwakkel for opening my mind to the possibilities of marginalia.

Working through my summer reading list, I’ve encountered a few old books, namely

Old Books Summer Reading 2015

From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne, printed 1966

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré, printed 1975

A Pocket Full of Rye by Agatha Christie, printed 1953

                   Thoughts on Old Books
                          by Jay E. 

Books are like wines and cheeses: 
  they’re better aged.
    
    Like certain furniture styles, 
      not just aged, but distressed.

Well-worn covers, falling apart at the seams, 
  held together by hope and scraps 
    of binding tape or hardened bits 
      of glue.

Not-quite-blank first pages, left empty by the publisher,
  filled in by a succession of owners, 
    give glimpses - small hints and clues – 
      to the history of those pages.

With luck, exquisite ex libris plates 
  bearing the name of one long passed 
    whose legacy yet lives on; what better legacy 
      than the power of the written word?

Title pages with weight and meaning, 
  some fantastic works of art, 
    others equally fantastic for their simplicity – 
      the end result of dedicated typographers 
        and skilled typesetters.

The quirks of printing: 
  typefaces not seen in decades,
    pages printed at a slant,
      chapter headings and divisions 
        once the norm now oddities.

Above all, the smell: 
  that heady mix of dust and must 
    and decaying paper and 
      ageing ink. 
  
  It almost hurts to breathe it in, 
    yet like an addict we return 
      again and again, 
        imbibing in our drug of choice.

Consider these pages from my copy of A Pocket Full of Rye:

Pocket Full of Rye First Page

Pocket Full of Rye Page 54 Robert Willis
 
At one point, the book belonged to New Bern High.

I theorize this was its first home.

How long did it stay there?

Was it bought or stolen or did someone simply forget to return it?

 
How long did each owner keep it?

How many owners did it have?

 
Who, exactly, is . . .

B.B.

“me”

Sheila, and

is that her phone number, or someone else’s?

Did she own the book and give the number in case it was lost?

Did she write her number for an admirer on the only paper available?

Robert Willis, and

how does he fit in to all this?

To me, his name seems like a young lady’s doodling.

Especially since his name appears on multiple pages.

 

Sometimes the best questions are those to which there are no answers.

 

 

Don’t forget to follow me on:

 

Facebook – where I share news stories, articles from other blogs, and various and sundry miscellany that happens to catch my eye. It’s stuff you won’t see here! Well, mostly.

 

Instagram – where I show you my Life in Motion and share quotes and such. The widget only shows my last three photographs – don’t you want to see them all?

 

Twitter – where you can see my thoughts in 140 characters or less. Also, funny retweets.

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