Lily Lusciousness

I adore these! 

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

For those of you following the Age of the World calendar 

(Annus Mundi / ἔτος κόσμου)

🎉🎉 HAPPY  7,534 🎉🎉

Am I Attractive & Popular?

One of my personality defects is seeking the approval of others.  This is peculiar since, as many know, I hold most of humanity in low esteem.  Be that as it may, something I do, frankly, out of curiosity, is look at how many hits my blog posts score.  The numbers, as some of you will undoubtedly know, make little sense, and accounting for why some are popular and some are not is an exercise in futility.  So, for giggles, here are my numbers counting backwards from 6pm, Saturday, Aug 30th: 

Sat    59

Fri    169

Thu   204 - report of David's birthday festivities (high)

Wed  124

Tue   6    - post of carnations (low)

Mon 66

Sun   26

Sat    41

Fri    77

Thu   51

Wed  93

Tue   37

Mon 27

Sun   67 

From this data I deduce I should write more posts about David.  He's the obvious draw. 

Amusement

Back to the Blocks

Yesterday

Some shots of David's birthday in Old Town 

view from lunch 

birthday boy

King St (restaurant at left)

Riverside Park

 

Torpedo Factory Art Center

(cleverly so called because they used to build torpedoes there) 

O Most Joyous of Days!!!

 Today is My Sweet Poopsie's Birthday!!!

Flowers

This time, they didn't quite do what I wanted them to. Among other things, the stems were too spindly (hard to tell in a wrapped bouquet).  But after a couple days, they improved.

 

Driver's License (or would that be Drivers License?)

I received my renewed driver's license today, good till 2033! Once again it has a star in its upper right corner,* which I take to mean the state government thinks I'm doing an excellent job being a Virginian.  Woohoo!

*For those dwelling in exotic foreign lands, the star simply indicates that the license card is compliant with federal secure ID regulations. Our licenses these days have more security measures on them than the currency.  

 

On Memory

(I was going to write a post yesterday, but noted that my blog template had somehow gone a bit haywire. Blogger's settings were of no help; they've become quite useless these days, so I had to contact the Spirits--i.e., Google. The mystical oracles of all knowledge informed me that an unacceptable piece of code unknowingly posted in a post could cause this. So I deleted the offe3nding post and reposted it. Voilà! Problem solved, but the process was so grueling I was left with no energy to write a new post. Fervent apologies.)

The following appeared in the blog of a friend who happens to by a psychiatrist--some of you will know him. I thought it worthy to repost here:  

Our brains are not hard drives, they are more like deletion devices. We have what neurologists call ‘episodic memory” viz. we organize memories into sequences that we use reference points tied to other happenings. My memory of when things happened up to 2005 is pretty good, because they happened in sequences of levels of schooling and where I lived. In 2005 I moved to Arizona, Since then I have been in the same house, with the same job day, in and day out. Even the vacations and trips have been kind of repetitious. As a consequences, the last twenty years are a blur, one long time period. This isn’t an attribute of age but an lack of remarkable experiences to mark memory. To remember what happened when I have to consult my journals.

Hamster's Anecdotes from American History

In 1987, the governor of Utah removed all but 31 officers from the Utah State Guard, after a probe revealed that its ranks were "peppered with neo-Nazis, felons and mental patients."¹ Meanwhile, in 1990, the Virginia General Assembly launched an investigation and subsequent overhaul of its state's force after receiving tips that the volunteers were "saving money to buy a tank."²

 

 

¹Anderson, Jack (21 November 1991). "Independent state defense forces costly, without purpose". Kentucky New Era. Retrieved 11 January 2014. 

²Kelderman, Eric (31 December 2003). "State Defense Forces Grow, Project New Image". Pew Center on the States. Archived from the original on 12 July 2012.

Grocery Curiosities

At the new international market down the road

very fresh fish

barks???

And at the local supermarket…

GAY ICE CREAM!!!

Hamster Does Science!!!

 I've been meaning to post this for a while, and am finally getting to it.

 

As you may perhaps know, I have a certain fascination with cosmology and astrophysics. There is much I simply can't get my head around, but it's fun to read about it and listen to it, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/@SabineHossenfelder. As a result, I now have 2 (count 'em 2!) theories about why we've never been visited by, or even seen evidence of, intelligent alien life. The second one is a bit morose, but at least displays my confidence in the intelligence of the cosmos as a whole.

 

theory 1: Despite decades of science fiction writing, faster than light travel really is impossible. Yeah, there is the whole warp idea, but no one's yet demonstrated it is possible to make one work in reality.

 

theory 2: The universe is clever enough to arrange things so that intelligent species die out--either from natural causes, cosmic disasters, or their own stupidity--before they are capable of interstellar travel. That would prevent all sorts of untidiness that would result from two intelligent species encountering one another.

 

Hey, I never claimed to be Einstein...

 

Trivia

I've been such a slug lately... I missed announcing the birthdays of Karl I, the most recent (I will NEVER say "last") emperor of Austria-Hungary on Aug 17, 1887, or of his predecessor and great-uncle Franz-Josef on Aug 18, 1830. Felicitations to their All-Highest & Apostolic Majesties!

 In cheerier news, David brought back a new NA from Aldi, Bellini - so peachy!

 

 

And, once again, Welcome to Northern Virginia...