Lines Plan Their Day

Posted on 2020-07-17 by Mellow Curmudgeon

«Let’s twist and ripple across the computer screen
in an exuberant pseudorandom dance
that won’t repeat for centuries.»

twist-ripple-bird_840x788

«Maybe tomorrow. Still sore from yesterday.
I pulled red line duty and
people stepped on me as they crossed.»

red-line_840x344

«Hmmm. Let’s just mark a few straight edges
of flat surfaces in the real world
until U feel better.»

«I’m up for that if we keep the angles simple.»

corner-grn-pink-align_800x564

I have good news and bad news.

The good news is that I have improved the format of some silliness posted on 2018-05-01, in response to a challenge with the word [line]. The improvements appear above, in response to a new challenge:

Line ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #240

The bad news is that the serious undercurrent in my silliness is even more topical than before. In so many high places in so many nations, fascists and their enablers have been stampeding across red lines. One of many recent examples in the USA is Donald Trump’s order that hospitals bypass the CDC and send COVID-19 data only to a database run by Trump loyalists. With predictable consequences.

After a rueful chuckle about how it feels to be a red line nowadays, we can get back to disinfecting surfaces and other little chores. Like saving constitutional democracy.

Remember in November.

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haiku, humor, photography

Are U Lookin’ At Me?

Posted on 2018-12-24 by Mellow Curmudgeon

The [Menu] button (atop the vertical black bar) reveals widgets like the Search box. Typing just the [Enter] key into the Search box is a way to browse WordPress blogs.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Farm Animals

are-u-looking-at-me_840x537

No, this cow did not lose an argument with a bucket of white paint. Belted Galway cattle are bright white in the middle, with either brown or black fore and aft. The white is usually in a neat band, much like the rust-colored band on a woolly bear caterpillar. Maybe this cow’s sloppy band comes from too much time in a certain pub.

What the World Needs
|More silliness from
|those who know they are silly;
|less from the others.

food, humor, language, photography

Lime Time

Posted on 2018-09-09 by Mellow Curmudgeon

The [Menu] button (atop the vertical black bar) reveals widgets like the Search box. Typing just the [Enter] key into the Search box is a way to browse WordPress blogs.

The color word lime is used for many light or yellowish kinds of green.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Lime or Light Green

New leaves often display a version of lime.

lime-leaves_fix_840x1214

Actual limes display several versions of lime on the outside and …

lime-light_840x630

… yet another version on the inside.

lime-face_840x840

Got tequila?

Dry Margarita

A bottle of premixed margaritas is convenient, but the contents are too sweet for me. To get a drier margarita with minimal mixological effort, I use roughly equal amounts of premixed margarita and dry white wine. Tho admittedly not a world-class margarita, the result is a good no-fuss drink.

humor, photography

Elmer’s Epoxy Epic

Posted on 2018-08-12 by Mellow Curmudgeon

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Cee’s Oddball Photo Challenge: 2018-08-12

dark-shards_840x671

? ? ? ?

What U see depends on when U look.
Here is the same detail under typical lighting:

blue-shards_840x671

A detail of what?
Scroll down to see the answer (image & text).

↓

Keep scrolling …

↓

hide-baffle_840x866

A clever craftsperson repurposed some windows from an old house as suncatchers, with shards of colored glass held in place by clear liquid epoxy. Alas, the epoxy components were not measured just right for the one I bought. (It’s difficult.) Sticky gunk oozed from cracks and seams after a few weeks of exposure to hot sun.

An epic battle between Elmer’s Glue and the rogue epoxy ended in victory for Elmer. On one side of the suncatcher, a thick coating of glue was needed in some places. I added more to make a whimsical mix of clear and cloudy, roughly 50-50. The ratio is not so critical as when mixing epoxy.

My suncatcher is a good size for hiding the squirrel baffle above my hanging bird feeder, and it has withstood years of hot summer sun w/o having any gunk get past Elmer. On the other hand, a few squirrels have gotten past the baffle.

humor, photography

Navajo Rug

Posted on 2018-07-162019-06-04 by Mellow Curmudgeon

Four of the eleven items specified in a CFFC challenge are sitting on a Navajo rug. Glad I do not need everybody in one photo. It’s a small rug.

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Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Week 1 Photo
geometry, bushes, window, brick, etc

Four of the items mentioned in this challenge are sitting on a small Navajo rug:

NavajoRug_840x682

Geometry, bushes, window, brick, curtain, green, tan, wall, building, dark red, tree

Glad I do not need everybody in one photo.
As I said, it’s a small rug.

humor, photography

Looking at Lichen

Posted on 2018-07-142020-07-04 by Mellow Curmudgeon

Contrary to appearances, lichen is organic and growing. But it grows slowly. Really slowly.

Organic ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #147

lichen-2_840x536

Lichen looks like flaking paint.
Inorganic? No, it ain’t.

Do not try to watch it grow.
Each micron takes a day or so.

Nerdy 😉 Note

Dunno enough lichenology to say how slowly my lichen grows. From the wide range of known lichen growth rates and my very casual observations, I could go with either “hour” or “day” as a crude monosyllabic estimate of long my lichen takes to grow a millionth of a meter wider. Compared to watching lichens grow, watching grass grow would be like watching hockey.

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humor, photography

The Towel Brothers

Posted on 2018-06-242019-09-05 by Mellow Curmudgeon

There are grander true stories of failure and redemption, but this one can be illustrated by photos with many horizontal lines, in response to a challenge.

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Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Horizontal Line(s)

Ken is a colorful “kitchen towel” but …

kitchen-towel-flash_840x686

… can’t keep up with Hank (a “hand towel”) at drying.

terry-1_840x497

What else can towels do? I repurposed Ken to …

repurpose-1_840x393

… block glare from the light over the sink …

repurpose-2_840x814

… and left the drying to Hank.

terry-2_840x740

haiku, humor, photography

Lines Plan Their Day

Posted on 2018-05-012020-07-16 by Mellow Curmudgeon

«Let’s twist and ripple across the computer screen
in an exuberant pseudorandom dance
that won’t repeat for centuries.»

twist-ripple-bird_840x788

«Maybe tomorrow. Still sore from yesterday.
I pulled red line duty and
people stepped on me as they crossed.»

red-line_840x344

«Hmmm. Let’s just mark a few straight edges
of flat surfaces in the real world
until U feel better.»

«I’m up for that if we keep the angles simple.»

corner-grn-pink-align_800x564

Images #1 and #2 in my response to

Lines | The Daily Post

were selected and cropped from bursts of photos while running the Mystify screen saver. Image #3 is a photo of an architectural detail, edited to compensate for my inability to compose precisely w/o a viewfinder. (Glad I eventually replaced the old camera by one with both a screen and a viewfinder.) Here is a haiku about the kind of silliness exemplified by the dialog in my response:

What the World Needs
|More silliness from
|those who know they are silly;
|less from the others.

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haiku, humor, language

Are short words better than long?

Posted on 2017-06-052020-07-17 by Mellow Curmudgeon

Yes, but not always. It depends on what U want to do.

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Here is a little silliness with self-reference in response to [Diminutive ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #90], which displays a good use of a long word.

tiny

Wanting Five
Ah, “diminutive”!
Big word for “tiny” fills out
first line of haiku.

Hmmm. Would anybody want a long synonym for “tiny” in a 5-7-5 haiku? Nah.

BTW, self-reference in language really is a big deal, as explained (among other places) here and here. It has also been joked about in other haiku. Some examples are here and here.

haiku, humor, politics

Calliope and Geology

Posted on 2016-09-062021-07-09 by Mellow Curmudgeon

The juxtaposition in my title is weird, but Calliope is unfazed. After all, she is the ancient Greek muse of eloquence, epic poetry, and circus music.

calliope

As American politics in 2016 illustrates, Calliope’s portfolio is not as weird as I would wish. Neither is my title.

As I discovered long ago when I tried to read an English translation of Goethe’s Faust, poetry in couplets tends to sound silly even when it is dead serious. Now that I have had my little respite from blank verse in haiku form, maybe I should go back to solemn austerity. Maybe.

What the World Needs
|More silliness from
|those who know they are silly;
|less from the others.

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– above post (on phone) or beside it (on desktop). –