Boy, if I had a nickel for every computer or website glitch I've encountered since signing on to this virtual world, well, let's just say I'd have a whole lot of nickels. More nickels than you'd want to fall on your head all at once, that much is certain.
The latest is the counter here on this forum. It looks to me as if it reset itself and now reads single digits, strange. I have no clue where the count was at but I'm reasonably certain it hasn't turned over like a car odometer...
What was I gonna write about here today? Oh, I know, along with my mail run and a trip to the craft store for some supplies I made a pilgrimage yesterday across the bridge to see my old school chum, for the sake of anonymity- he'll appreciate this -we'll call him 'Pete'. Now, 'Pete' is a peculiar fellow, I'm sure he'd agree completely with that assessment and take pleasure in it as well. We knew each other in passing in high school and then got to hanging out in college and have, in spite of his weirdness and sometimes downright disagreeableness, sort of stuck it out in the intervening years due in no small part to our common interest in pop culture, comic books and overlapping musical tastes. That and my own good natured acceptance of everybody else's weirdness- I'm no weirdo! -and Pete's in particular.
Plus his mom says I'm the only friend he's got. I know that's not entirely true but I think she says it because she figures it makes us both feel good having found a fellow weirdo to commingle with for all these years. So we keep in touch largely through email but hang out a coupla times a year and exchange reading material, which is to say 'comics' and pablum like TV autobiographies, and yak about inane topics nobody else will sit still for.
But after sending a dozen or so emails during the last month or so- items of interest, auctions, inconsequential questions -and receiving no response I thought I better trundle over the river and see if he'd perhaps been killed in a flaming wreck or some misadventure. Because you never know, y'know? Unless you live next door to someone how would you be aware of their sudden absence... Sobering but true...
Anyway, Pete turned out to be alive and well, simply closed up his email box for a while to ignore spam(and everything else along with it!)and was, as always, good for a few hours discoursing on various, whattayacallit, 'conspiracy theories': hidden agendas, goverment spying, the dangers of wireless telephones, secret societies, invasion of privacy, who killed Kennedy, the moon landing hoax, fake Paul McCartney and so on.
And so it was yesterday. I have to admit a great many points he presents on these various subjects make a lot of sense and he has no shortage of reading material, internet research and related factoids to back up what might otherwise seem outlandish, tabloid variety assertions.
But we always come back to simpler stuff like the new toy Batmobile, the possibility of a Van Halen reunion tour, what my wacky family members are up to, people and events he reminds me of from our college years which, with his expansive memory, he recalls in unusually keen detail and I have only fuzzy impressions of having been there once long, long ago.
Which would, in fact, be very, very painful if I chose to dwell on it. I mean, besides the obvious joys of recollection what shapes our daily determinations and perspectives more than cumulative experience that is the stuff of life and especially those shared, right? When that whole filing section has become a dimly lit room down a dark corridor of the mind... Well, were there was an experimental chemical remedy or exercise regimen to correct that dysfunction, I'd be standing in line right now, believe me.
In more mundane news: I've still got to make my tacos tonight. A family friend, a young fellow a few years senior to my son, has been camping out with us a coupla nights a week since we are relatively close to his workplace versus his home down country. He's a great kid, very pleasant and a positive influence on my boy-boy so we're happy to accomodate. I should call him and see if he's coming by tonight, let him know there'll be taco fixings a la carte for us bachelors.
I'll have to have everything in order before Smallville, yay!
Well, I suppose I'll do some crafting before the sun sets; cold, rainy right now so it's not exactly a 'bright, bright, bright sunshiney day' anyway. Did you know the guy who sang I Can See Clearly Now, that lovely 70s ditty, Johnny Nash, also sang the theme song to the 1960s cartoon, The Mighty Hercules? It's true.
There's your useless but fascinating factoid for today.
I don't remember much but I can write the lyrics from memory:
Hercules, hero of song and story / Hercules, winner of ancient glory / Fightingfor the right, fighting with his might / with the strength of ten ordinary men / Hercules, people are safe when near him / Hercules, only the evil fear him / Softness in his eyes, iron in his thighs / Virtue in his heart, fire in every part / of the mighty Hercules
Stirring, innit? Ahh, yeah, well, thanks for listening...!
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