WALLBOARD UP!

That first photo is significant, in that it shows the wall board I've had stashed in the hallway is finally (mostly) in place in the bathroom. I really lost my steam on this project this summer, but I'm weary of not having a functional bathroom in the basement.

Thanks to Tina Renee Cleverley I have a piece of drywall to hang up as well to finish roughing things in, but that'll be tomorrow. I'm beat.

I don't know that I'll start on the tile this weekend, but I certainly want to get things to the point that I could begin laying things out. Mostly because I want the toilet back, but also because I'm really tired of the bathroom sing being in the study and blocking my bookshelves.

Second Life is Still A Thing?

So way back in the late 2000s, I earned a masters degree in English with an emphasis on technical writing.

In the intervening years, that degree has led me to a side job of teaching online English courses and thus has helped me earn back the money invested in the education and then some. (Not that I should justify education by increase earning power or return on investment, but here we are.)

Part of that degree included a semester spent in Second Life, for some reason. It was an elective class that fulfilled a degree requirement, so I took it. I remember we had the goal of making an in-world business, so you could call me an early metapreneur. Or not, because the business we put together went nowhere, but I got an A in the class and earned my degree, so it served its purpose.

Recently, I thought I'd look to see if Second Life was still a thing.

Regrettably, but not surprisingly, it really isn't. Or is too confusing of a thing for my addled Gen X brain to decide is worth pursuing further.

I think the interface confused me. I recovered my username and password (luckily I used an email address I still have access to when I registered the first time, rather than my student account which is now defunct).

But upon entering, I discovered I had to create a new username and password to enter the individual areas of Second Life. After a bit of confusion and Googling, I did so, and decided, after having to reinstall the software and drift into the new area which seemed to be completely unpopulated, that it just wasn't worth the bother.

There are probably places I can go online to find out where the "activity" is on Second Life, but I just can't be bothered.

The Fridge Isn't Fridging, Day 4

Today's surprise: Water. About half a gallon on the floor underneath the fridge. The fridge that I'd unplugged the night before.

No idea where it came from, unless there was more frost deeper inside the unit that needed more time to melt than I gave it.

It was not from the icemaker, or at least I don't think it was a leak, as the amount of water didn't grow as I mopped it up.

I don't dare plug it in now, leastwise until whatever was leaking dries up a little more. I can hear water sloshing somewhere when I move the unit.

Tuesday just isn't coming fast enough. I hope I don't have to call a plumber in the meantime.

This poor man full on had a heart attack on a kids' show, and we loved him for it.

Why is the Save Icon a Vending Machine?

When I saw this comment on a random Facebook thread, I felt my age:

I mean, I understand that we tend to identify images with what's familiar, so seeing the save icon as a vending machine at least makes sense in the "that thing looks like another thing" way.

But what, I wonder, does the vending machine have to do with preserving a document or image so it can be used later? I just don't know.

I know for me, floppy discs are a ubiquitous part of my computer-related experience, from the AOL 3 1/2 inch floppied I'd salvage from the mail and use (can't imagine doing that now with viruses and such) to the massive 8-inch floppies I used on typesetting computers I used in high school, viz:

I've used all three of these; owned computers that used the mid- and smallest variety. And I remember the day I filled a 3 1/2 inch floppy COMPLETELY FULL with data. No one in the world had ever done that before, I imagined.

Also: It really bugs me that the 3 1/2 inch floppy shown here is oriented upside down in relationto the other floppies displayed. But the younger generation, looking at this photo, will likely not notice the discrepancy because they've never used these things and the youngest don't even know what they are.

It's best to remember young folk, that we Gen Xers grew up with technology. Because of that, we have the ability to both adapt to new technology like you young folks and to complain about it like Boomers. That is our unique niche.

The Fridge Isn't Fridging, Day 3

So yeah, the fridge is not working in its current configuration.

I called to set an appointment with a repairman, and he can't come until next week. That's okay. It's just two of us at home right now and we're living out of a cooler which is kind of a pain but it's working.

Whether we buy a new fridge out of the deal isn't yet known. I'd like to find out what's wrong with the one we've got and see if can be repaired. I don't want to instantly throw it away; we already throw away way too much as a society. If it can be fixed at a reasonable price, with a reasonable chance of lasting at least a few more years (say, five to seven) I'm happy to get this one fixed and keep using it. We're too primed to toss something and replace it with something new rather than fix what we've got these days.

Not to Mention KERMIT the Damn FROG!

I'm glad YouTube is now promoting their very overplayed ads as standalone videos now, because how many times have I gone to YouTube and thought, "I really hope they play that commercial featuring the dog with the stoopid human voice."

Just in case Jimmy James is listening, I'm sitting here *enjoying* some advertising, not involved at all.

The Fridge Isn't Fridging, Day 2

So, all of you waiting to hear what happened next, here you go:

Last evening I unplugged the fridge because I could see vents at the back of the freezer were frosted over.

I got up at about midnight and plugged the unit back in, first verifying that the frost had melted.

This morning, the freezer is fine, the lower portion of the fridge is at 32 degrees, but the upper shelves are still in the mid-50s. So I suspect something on the unit is dead, but I want to give it until midnight tonight because the manual says it can take up to 24 hours for the fridge to cool fully after it's been shut off.

I'm not optimistic this is going to work, and Michelle seems resigned to shopping for a new one when she gets home this weekend. At this point, I'm not sure if I should call for a technician to pay a visit or not. I'll have to think on that.

The fridge is a 2013 model, meaning it's 12 years old. I know that's young for older fridges, but that seems to be ancient for modern fridges.

The Fridge Isn't Fridging

It's the weekend, meaning the fridge is on the fritz and no longer really fridging.

Noticed last night that the milk I had with my Pop Tarts was a little on the warm side, but we'd also just returned from a massive shopping trip and had crammed a lot of food into the fridge, so I figured it needed some time to recombobulate.

But this morning, same problem.

I vacuumed the condenser in the hopes that fixes the problem, but hours after that chore got done, this is what we're looking at:

It's not the most scientific method, using a meat thermometer wedged between two blocks of cheese, but it's all I've got at the moment. I'll keep an eye on things and see how things look later on, and then in the morning.

I've got a cooler and a jug of water in the freezer as a backup.

Odd thing: The freezer on the fridge is doing just fine, it's just the refrigerator compartment that's not fridging correctly.

Cleaning Out the Car Hold

Today, a very kind and excited lady living nearby on Leroy Drive came and took the cabinet I've had in the garage for the past few years, furthering my efforts to get the garage cleaned out.

That, combined with me going through all sorts of boxes of crud, tossing the trash, and condensing the rest, means I've got a lot more shelf space, though it's going quickly.

Compare this photo to the montage I offered earlier this week.

I've still got a way to go, but getting that cabinet out of the garage and into a place where it'll be filled with dishes rather than my garage garbage is a good feeling.

I would dearly love that mattress and box spring to disappear, but that's not going to happen until our daughter and son-in-law decide they want it after they get a house or an apartment locally. We'll have to see what happens then.

Closing in on the dream:

Thanks, Daffy

I love that my kids and I have such precious shared memories.

How Long 'Til Retirement? Part Infinite.

Arbitrarily, I have about 12 years to retirement.

At the end of Thursday, July 24, I'm not sure I'm going to survive another twelve hours.

And this is all coming a week before I have to head back to the cubicle farm, where I went today to pick out my cubicle. Working from home has been utterly awesome; I'm sad to see it go away because it made other people sad.

Sadder still to be dealing with some arbitrary editing conventions that exist only in the netherworld, not necessarily in any of our written standards. I have, at this point, given up on trying to outguess said netherworld.

That appears to have paid off, since the last word from the netherworld is that the situation is "error prone," and will be stopped. Until the next directive arrives, of course.

Wordle Spoiler - and A Miracle

No one -- including myself -- will believe this happened.

No one will believe it happened without cheats or hints, except me. Because it's just how it happened. "What word should I start with today? Why not water?"

Just like this. No one will believe me.

This also happened today: First time to get the most difficult (purple) grouping first:

Chess Pie?

The fun part in playing online games, be they Wordle or Connections or crossword puzzles, is learning new things.

Take today's connections, which resulted (spoilers) in the following:

The purple category is always a challenge -- and it brought me, toay, to chess pie. Who knew that was a thing?

I hope this is a wider application in the south than "finger steaks" are in Idaho. Those in the western part of the state seem to think finger steaks are ubiquitous throughout Idaho. I'm here, in East Idaho, to say these breaded chewy bits of gristle are not as ubiquitous as people think.

Nor have I ever heard anyone refer to a ground hog or marmot as a "whistle pig."

Geyser with Pedant

It's the kind of stuff they warn you about in literature when you go into the park, but you never think you're going to be the one to run afoul of a geyser pedant until you do.

Other things we saw:

The Biscuit Basin closure. The road into the basin is closed since, well, this, and they have done nothing to clean things up, which I think is fine. You can see the destruction without even leaving the road.

This is new video of the event I hadn't seen before. So glad I wasn't there.

Stuff Still Cumbers the Ground of My Vineyard

 

As I continue my fruitless efforts to cram all of our stuff into the same amount of space, I have begun a garage contents recombobulation that is going to fail, of course, but at least I tried.

This recombobulation, of course, has bled into the shed and into the carport, which is itself a temporary measure that I'm still impressed survived the winter.

The goal in the garage is to make that big wooden cabinet disappear, because it's just turned into an inefficient way to store stuff. It's bulky and awkward and, at the end of all things, was just a place to cram stuff and forget about it.

I am hoping to crawl up what walls I can to find good ways to store things. I've also gone through what I've got and taken some stuff to Deseret Industries to it can go on to cumber someone else's vineyard.

Outland: Thirty Years Later, Still Blah

 

As much as I love Bloom County, Outland just isn't there.

And I know this review is more than 30 years late. It's taken me that long to sit and read an entire Outland collection -- a find at a local thrift store. I know a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since 1992, and Bloom County has actually come back.

But Outland was pretty blah.

Templates . . .

I spent a good portion of my day making a document worse because the template's set up that way.

I've also - slowly - been developing a template for another type of document. I'm purposely leaving it as open on headings and format as possible, so we don't end up in a situation like the one I find myself in now.

Templates are good. They help us to remember to include what needs to be there. But while some documents are template-friendly in their rigidity, others not so much. We need more guidelines than rules.

And while the template I'm working with isn't as sinister as the Black Pearl, it's still going to be a jolly time this Monday explaining to my customer why things have changed so. Which means in making the change I have to be very, very precise. Which is going to take time. Which will upset the customer. But my job often entails listing to the one who makes the scariest threat on a given day, so that's the way things go.

I still very much like this job, enough I've encouraged Michelle to apply for a similar position that just opened up. It's amazing what we'll put up with to keep a roof over our heads. I hope she gets the job. Then we can commiserate more over things like templates.

I Don't Know if I Got the Spices Right

It's not quite a "thin stew" in its current form, but it's certainly thin in the pan.

What is this I'm talking about? Why, it's this:

I found online a recipe for a dish like this, and yanno, it's pretty good. I have no idea if I got the spices right, but I'd make it again. Here's the recipe.

I didn't use bok choy, but substituted spinach instead. Also did not use fresh lemon grass or ginger, but used lemon grass and ginger paste. And while I was going to put shrimp in it, we were out of shrimp, which was sad.

KABOOM!

Drove - or at least was a passenger - through a summer deluge on a mission of mercy to bring a new power inverter to Michelle.

She was in the camper earlier today when the old inverter screamed, let out a huge puff of black smoke, then died. It was an inverter we were going to replace anyway, but I guess it decided to push our plans forward a bit. Luckily enough I was able to find one locally that would do what she needs.

We did get a burger from Big Juds out of it, so it wasn't a complete waste of an evening. She's back at camp now and says the inverter seems to be inverting just fine. Damn camper roof still leaks in the shower area, though. That's got me stymied. No idea where the water is sneaking in.

New inverter for scale:

Sure, it's from Harbor Freight. But this inverter is made by an American company and seems to have a pretty good reputation online. And while a lot of people dump on Harbor Freight, I actually own a lot of stuff from there, and I've yet to be disappointed by something I've purchased there. And it had the best qualities we needed in an inverter: Pure sine wave, and available locally.

Had the faulty inverter burned the camper to the axles, that would have solved some of my problems. But introduced some new ones, so we'll call it a draw.

Still need to get a new battery for the camper, but at least the new inverter will get along with the kind we want to get.

UPDATE: 24-hours later, Michelle reports the inverter is still inverting and, compared to the previous model, is doing so extremely quietly. Her one quibble: The former inverter had two USB outlets, the new one has only one. But it's doing its intended job quietly, contentedly.

Raising Steam: A New Look

After a hiatus in which I read several other books, I'm back on Terry Pratchett's "Raising Steam."

My initial look at the book was pretty grim. It still feels as if the book were written in Plato's cave, but it's growing on me. I really try to give books a fair shake; there are only a few I've given up on (notably John Crowley's "Little, Big" and Mervyn Peake's "Gormenghast" novels (and I'm not sure I've given up on the latter, but it certainly has fallen to the bottom of my "to read" pile).

I picked "Raising Steam" back off the pile after finishing Catherine Gilbert Murdock's "The Book of Boy," which I thoroughly enjoyed. I decided after reading that excellent book that I wanted to get back to Pratchett's last book, and I'm glad I did.

The gauze is starting to come off the characters. There's a lot of gauze there yet, but they're starting to come through, and Pratchett -- like Dickens -- is to be read for the characters, because the characters make the story.

I know Alzheimers is an ugly disease; my mother-in-law passed away from Alzheimers complications earlier this year. It was hard to watch her personality deteriorate and fade, so watching it in "Raising Steam" brings back some pretty hard memories of our family's last few months with her. So I guess I have a little extra baggage coming into this novel.

So, How's that Chore List Going?

I keep a running chore list because I'm forgetful and also lazy, but I also love lists and crossing things off of lists, so the list keeps me going. And, surprisingly, chores get done.

Here's the list I've been working on:

Yes, I have had to re-add "paint kitchen ceiling" to the list. I did paint the problem area, but now need to paint the rest of the ceiling to match.

I'm also unsure as of yet if the leak in the camper roof is fixed or not. I did have to go to camp a few weekends ago to do another bit of taping, but I don't know if it's rained up there since then. It's been dry as a bone here.

Missing from the list (mostly) is the basement bathroom. I have been patching ceiling holes where I've run the Cat-6 cable and have hung some of the backer board, but not much else to report there. Maybe a bit later when my weekends aren't so scattered.

It's part of the joys of home ownership, but in some ways it's a lot of fun. Sometimes.

Check Engine Light OFF

As I continue my quest to keep our 2005 Honda Pilot on the road, I have a little victory.

The new gas cap I was hoping would fix the evap system warning that triggered the check engine light has done its duty. The cap is on and the light is off.

That doesn't mean the dash is free of warning lights, but the newest one has been taken care of.

It's got just north of 250,000 miles on it, and I'd like to keep it going a while longer. I like not having a car payment to worry about.

Now if I could only figure out that stupid TPMS light . . . 

We Continue the Journey We Started

Got to thinking about Dad last night, and a dream he had.

He was standing on the bank of a river. Across the river, he could see Mom walking, very slowly, using a walker. He watched her walk for a bit, struggling on the rocky trail. Then she saw him, turned her course and plunged into the river. The walker went tumbling and he watched, helpless, as she struggled in the rapid water.

But she came out of the water, climbing, then walking with ease. She came up to him, kissed and embraced him, and together they continued their journey on the same side of the river.

We continue the journey we have started.

Pete's Puddle has the Best Sunsets

Michelle sent me this photo today of the sunset blossoming over Pete's Puddle, the lake at Island Park Scout Camp.

I wish I were there tonight.

Not for the noise and hubbub of camp, but for the little peaceful moments like this that help you see that even hot, dusty, unsheltered places like Island Park Scout Camp does have its beauty. And thus does the world.

THE NEW GAS CAP IS HERE

I'm pretty sure no one else will be as excited about this as I am, but MY NEW GAS CAP IS HERE.

Here, a little rant.

A month or so ago, a new warning on my 2005, 250,000-mile Honda Pilot, but one I can't ignore, because CHECK FUEL CAP is now obscuring one of the most important dashboard instruments: The thermometer.

So I went to the auto parts store, being the forward-thinking man that I am, and bought a new gas cap. The old one had hung on for 250,000 miles and by golly, if a $14 gas cap could get rid of that dashboard warning, so be it. No matter that the other dashboard warnings, one for TPMS and the other for the airbag, go unanswered. I should probably look into those, thought I'm convinced TPMS is a system set up on Hondas to slow let the air out of the rear drivers' side tire. And airbag, I have *never* used that thing.

And for a while, the CHECK FUEL CAP error cleared, so smooth sailing.

Then it came back. Then it disappeared but was replaced by the dreaded CHECK ENGINE LIGHT. So my youngest, checking on his own vehicle, took it to the mechanic who read the error codes and deduced it's probably due to the cheap gas cap I bought, since 95% of the errors linked to the evaporative whatever system on Pilots is linked to a faulty gas cap, and the non-OEM ones tend to not fix the problem.

Thus the new gas cap.

I'll put it on tonight after work, drive around for awhile and hope that the error clears. Maybe I'll have to go clear it myself. Or I can make my son do it. I've earned the money for the $35 gas cap, after all.

Lucky Find: The Book of Boy

I'm calling this a lucky find at the local thrift store this week:

I'll admit I'm a sucker for *any* book set in pseudo-medieval times, particularly one that involves a character talking to animals. But as I go through this book -- and it's hard to put down -- I'm struck mostly by the simplicity of the storytelling. This is the kind of story I aspire to write, so I really should be paying attention to the writing style. There is some description, but it's brief and adds to the story, which moves along briskly. The characters are few but clearly defined, the story starts almost immediately -- something I struggle with in my own writing -- and the action just keeps going. No Steinbeck hooptedoodle in this one.*

(An aside: The blog post linked above, from my blog, is on the FIRST PAGE of Google searches for "hooptedoodle Steinbeck".)

I understand the book was a Newberry Honor winner in 2019, and justly so.

One oddity, something I've seen in print books a few times, but it's been a long time since I've seen it: The last page of the book physically glued to the cover:

*Amended to say the hooptedoodle came in the last two pages, and was perfect enough to make me weep.

Hey! For Hooptedoodle, I'm an Expert!

Googled "hooptedoodle Steinbeck" tonight as I wanted to reference Steinbeck's hooptedoodle concept in another blog post, and found a previous blog post in which I write about hooptedoodle shows up on the first page of searches for that particular search term, viz:

This is almost as exciting as they day a student from New York contacted me via email back in the really early days of email to ask what I knew about James Ensor, the famous Belgian painter, because he/she had seen my reference to Ensor on my very rudimentary home page, from the mid to late 1990s. I had to confess then the only stuff I knew was from the They Might Be Giants song, so the conversation died quickly after that.

. . . Lil Bit of Methane.

First Monday in August, I have to go back to working at the office after more than five years of working from home -- the best gift the Covid Summer of 2020 offered me.

I will go from making phone calls and sending and receiving emails in my basement with only two weenie dogs for immediate company to making phone calls and sending and receiving emails in a cubicle with 25 random interruptions a day and a commute to a parking lot that may or may not have enough room for me to park.

I just know I hope they like pajama pants, because that's how I'm dressing the first week back.

We've GOT to Get ORGANIZED

Problem: Swimming through years of files, blog posts, Facebook posts, sweating about that external hard drive that died and you couldn't get the files off it, looking for a "great" bit of writing you did years ago, thinking to pull it out of mothballs and start working on it again.

Bigger problem: Not being able to find it.

Bonus: Finding other bits of writing that, through the mists of time, also still hold potential and interest, so you gather them in a new file just as likely to be lost as the one you're looking for, but at least you feel better for the looking.

Found what I was looking for. Emergency is over. Just had to remember the right search terms to use.

Oh My Gosh My Waffle! Oh the Humanity!

So I got a text from someone likely involved in smishing or pig butchering, but as I was in a weird mood, I thought I'd interact with them.

The best part: THEY REMEMBERED THE SECRET GOVERNMENT EGGO PROJECT.

I'm sure they did an image search when I posted my "photo" and realized I was in it for the lulz. They haven't contacted me again.

Yes, I should have ignored it. They know the phone number is active since I responded. But maybe they'll see I'm on to their game and not likely to fall for . . . whatever it was they wanted. I feel bad I never even got to the scam. I was going to bring my boss, Dr. Jemima, into the mix.

The Secret Government Eggo Project, for the uninitiated:

PLEASE! BUY MY HOUSE!

Remember, it's *fun* helping someone look for a house.

Or not. Last time we did this, back in the far-off time of 2011, I don't remember the social media/texting aspect of it all. We looked at the MLS, toured a lot of crappy houses, then eventually bought one.

But nowadays, it's all this online nonsense. You have to divulge your contact info before you can even look at the descriptions, resulting in folderol like this:

I really want to reply that our daughter and son-in-law are hoping for a 2008-style maker crash before buying, but that feels impolitic.

Sure, it's a convenient way for agents to keep tabs on potential customers. That doesn't make it not annoying.

Another Nest

All that time the robins nest in the hanging planter on the front porch was getting all the attention, another robin built an even bigger nest in our backyard apricot tree 

It's up high enough we can't see what's gonna ng on, but we do appear to have a broody robin there. Definitely a robin, as I saw it leave the nest yesterday.

And considering what they used to build it, I'm glad I haven't cleaned up the weeds by the shed.

Boom

Our little show is over but the neighborhood will be exploding into the night.

That's My Little Joke

So my wife ordered a new wedding band because the one she currently has is a bit big for her fingers now and likes to rotate and snag on things. Where she's the director of a scout camp climbing tower, that's not what she needs in any kind of ring.

So she shopped for a new ring and it came today. She wanted me to verify that it had indeed come, so I sent her this:

I got no reaction. And I mean no reaction for a few minutes. So I texted her the real picture:

Still nothing.

So I called her to see if the joke landed so flat she didn't want to talk with me again. Apparently I was texting during their last meeting, and with it being overcast at camp and with them inside a building, reception, which is never all that good up there, was almost nil. She did get the photos. And is speaking to me. And is coming home tonight. So all is well.

"They Never Taught This In School"

 

I try not to be the typical grumpy Gen Xer, but y'all make it so easy.

Topic at hand: Whining about "they never taught us this in school."

My generation probably thought this a lot about many topics. Probably said it about many topics too. But the older I get, the more reality keeps slapping me in the face just like good ol' Buck Russell gets slapped trying to break the bad news to his sometimes-girlfriend Chanice:

They can't teach us everything in school.

What they *can* teach us in school is how to learn, how to seek out the experts, how to realize we're beyond our depth and have to pay for help, and how we can learn ourselves without blaming someone else for not putting the material in front of us when we were callow youth and probably would have rolled our eyes at having to learn it anyway.

Taxes. That's a big one. Nobody taught us this in school. So, learn. The IRS has instructions for us to follow. There are plenty of people on YouTube willing to help. There are CPAs if you feel too dumb to learn or have tax situations that are too complex. There's software. If you are willing to try things out, taxes are doable.

I've done all my taxes, first with the IRS instructions and lately with tax software. I only screwed up once when I put my income on the incorrect line -- but the state and the IRS were quick to recognize the problem and walked me through how to fix things without screaming or piling on the fines. That was years ago; maybe the IRS and such are meaner now, but I doubt it.

Science. There's a lot of griping about "why didn't we learn this in science class?" What I do remember is introduction to a lot of scientific concepts. I'm still interested in many aspects of science, and have done a lot of reading and watching to help me understand things better.

School can't teach us everything. It can teach us how to learn and how to remain curious, and if we take on the "ludicrous" concept that learning is a life-long endeavor, we'll spend our time learning rather than griping about what we weren't taught in school, which for me may as well be a billion years ago.

I know we've moved into an era of instant gratification. I feel it pulling on me, but I'm trying as hard as I can to resist it. Learning things can be tedious. It can be slow -- particularly if you're a dim bulb like me. But it can be done. We just have to keep at it.

Take our house, for example. We moved here in 2012, and since then I've learned a few things:

1. Sprinkler system installation and maintenance.

2. Siding installation.

3. Cedar fence replacement.

4. Low-voltage wiring.

I've also honed my skills working with tile, simple electrical repairs and replacements, shelving, and other tasks. I've worked hard trying to keep our camper from disintegrating. I've made mistakes and had to learn the hard way, but I'm learning. And they don't teach any of this stuff in school.

So get out of here with the whining. Go learn something.

Why Does This Book Exist?

I'm trying to figure out why this book exists.

I should say this: I'm only 90 pages into it, so a little less than half. But still I wonder: Who is this book for?

Old farts like me recognize the name of Tom Brokaw. He was a mainstay of the news in the 80s and longer, when I was growing up and going to school. And as Brokaw was a rookie television reporter assigned to Washington during the Nixon impeachment years, it's natural that Brokaw would write a book about it.

But why does this book exist?

There's been little of the story sofar, and what is there is stuff you could probably find in a Wikipedia article on the Watergate scandal. Outside of that, there's a lot of name-dropping. Lots of name-dropping. So this is more of a memoir, I suppose, with the "fall of Richard Nixon," -- one of the book's two subtitles -- playing in the background.

I'll give it a fair shake and finish it, of course. But it's thusfar the least informative Nixon book I've ever read.

WHERE'S THE BEEF?

Once in a while, I feel sorry for YouTube.

Well, not necessarily YouTube. Certainly the creators; those who put a lot of time and effort into their work. They deserve remuneration, in the form of advertising.

I'd rather they had embedded advertising, if I'm allowed to have a preference. I don't mind creators dealing with sponsors directly and making deals to support their work. But not everyone can get the deals.

I don't know how advertising on YouTube works. I imagine the creators get a (tiny) cut, with the rest going to the host/Google, and I understand hosting has a cost.

What I object to is this:

1. Don't start my video with an unskippable ad.

2. Don't start my video with an unskippable ad that's comparable in length to the video I want to watch.

3. Don't start my video with an ad, period.

I reserve the right to do the following:

1. Get sick of ads to the point I use ad blockers or browsers that suppress ads.

2. Go back to YouTube without any ad blocking when Google does things to break the ad blockers or ad-suppressing browsers.

3. Go back to ad blockers and ad-suppressing browsers when they function again.

Note I am of GenX*: I grew up with commercials, so I don't mind them as such. But commercials should be brief, and be gone, and be used to take bathroom breaks or get snacks and should include a pimply voice shouting IT'S ONNNNNNN! when the commercials are over. Commercials should not include an algorithm that says, "Hey, you didn't hit "skip ad" almost immediately; let's toss a five-minute informercial your way."

Or they could be *good* ads.

I'm looking at you, GEICO and Liberty Mutual. I know you've got a *lot* invested in your mascots. But your ad saturation levels are, uh, highly saturated. I would go to any other insurer but you, to be honest.

*Meaning I can adapt to new techology fairly quickly as any current generation, but reserve the right to grouse about it like a Boomer.