The Old Hack

*sigh* One damn thing after another. Let us hope it was nothing too serious that happened.

So, back in 9th grade, early in the year, my English teacher pulled me aside. She told me that the entire last year she had watched me be bored out of my skull during her classes and always do my material perfectly while barely trying. She told me that she had nothing to offer me at the level of English we were supposed to learn and suggested that I for the rest of the year go do my own thing during her classes. She'd let me do the exams normally and all I had to do was to be quiet about it as it was a bit irregular. At the end of the year I passed with top marks. Then we repeated it in 10th grade. If there was one thing this taught me, it was that self study can be incredibly valuable if it is a subject you are truly interested in. And I loved reading, writing and speaking English. At least in part because so much of the 'great literature' we had to read in Danish was incredibly depressing and dull, and I liked science fiction. By the time I turned 13 (late 7th grade) I had exhausted the sparse Danish science fiction section in the library. So I got hold of a brick of a Heinlein novel my mother had lying around and read it through the brute force method of looking up every word I did not understand, which was about one in three. It took me three months to finish it, but I did it. And as it happened, around the middle of the book the characters started to discuss science fiction writers they loved. Armed with their names I went to the library and had it order books by them written in English (no Danish translations available in most cases, anyway.) During the entirety of 8th grade I barely glanced at my English school material and went directly to what I considered to be the real deal, books by Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven, everything else I could find by Heinlein and even E.E. 'Doc' Smith and his Lensman series. It was for this reason that I at the start of 9th grade was so far beyond the curriculum that it wasn't even funny. I remain grateful to my teacher that she didn't make me sit through it. At that point it was about as challenging to me as a Richard Scarry book but didn't have even a hundredth of the entertainment value. I mean, at least I would have enjoyed reading a Richard Scarry book.

Nonetheless, thank you for the updates. Believe me, they are as welcome as the cat pictures -- they tell us you are alive and hanging in there in spite of everything. It seems to be the season for wishes. Allow me to add mine that the pressure will let up eventually and that you will all make it safely to the other side of it.

This gives me a mental image of a feline liquor store with fine 18-year-old Baker single malt matured in Cognac barrels on the top shelf and a more common Glenloudmouth 12-year-old on the middle.

That is a tall assumption. There is ONE trait in common for aberrations we can be certain of. They feared death so much that they were willing to pay any price to avoid it. Trying to ram this into a specific category of mental disorder is as simplistic as saying that they were all members of the same political party.

My two Burmese often had energetic wrestling matches. My wife and I called them kitfights. They ended the same way, with two tired kitties curling up to sleep. Thanks for the picture. My wife will love it.

I just thought I would mention that I and my wife have made a contribution to the Red Cross to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey. For anyone interested in chipping in a little, try this link. http://www.redcross.org/hp/harvey3

I am nonetheless happier knowing that you have a better doctor this time. I trust he will do the best he can and that over time you will see improvement.

I have no idea. I like "Don't worry, be happy."

I'm sorry, old friend. But you and Mrs. Prof and the kitties are in my thoughts. You will manage, I am certain. And even times like these shall eventually pass.

Translation devices never cease to amaze me. Twitter has an exceptionally talented one. I received a tweet that was basically a mocking comment on a previous one. It went something like, "LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL *gasp for breath* LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL." At the bottom of the tweet, Twitter kindly offered, "Translate from Filipino." To think that I could have gone my whole life without knowing that that was actually Filipino. I am truly blessed.

I have experienced exactly one hurricane in my life. It was here in Copenhagen and guess what. I slept through it. It was kind of embarrassing. Mind you, getting up the next morning and seeing the wreckage of cars and in one case an 18-wheeler truck blown about by the wind was a bit of an experience. Hurricanes are not common here. It had been more than thirty years since the last one. I guess this is why some people insisted on being out in it in their cars, or in that one case, truck. Thankfully we had very few casualties.

See, this is what I am talking about. Good horror leaves something for the imagination to work with. That big shadow thing is just so blatant. Mr. Scarf on the other hand is underplayed. We know exactly one thing about him and that is that he made the shadow thing back down by calling it out on its pretend outrage. As Tom hinted at, our own imaginations will supply us with copious horrific possibilities as far as his true nature is concerned.

Just to once more comment on the fact that in horror stories less is often more, I find the aberration in the scarf a good deal more disturbing than the big obviously scary and fanged shadow thing.

My wife sends her regards and says she is very pleased that the two of them are starting to get along. They really are adorable cats. I hope they make good friends eventually.

He is afraid of getting in trouble with Madamleck again. Last time he did lots of collateral deaths without inviting her she made him sleep on the sofa for a month.

Sometimes good signs come in painful packaging. I could wish less of them did. I am glad you are recovering somewhat but sorry you have to deal with this crap.

Thirded. I am sorry you have to deal with so much of this.

Of course, old friend. My condolences on your loss. Take all the time you need to recover; you will be in my thoughts.

What? Old westerns have fibbed to me

There is nothing wrong with either e-mailing Dan or tweeting him about it. Feel free to do either

Well, it is Texas. The whole place is one big flat desert with the odd cactus growing every one or two miles or so, right?

I am not sure if my own reflexive reaction is any better. It leans towards gallows humour. At one time I fainted while having an injection of a drug needed so I could donate stem cells to my brother. I woke up on the floor with a very worried nurse trying to take my pulse while looking at her watch. I did the to my mind only logical thing, which was to quote Groucho Marx. "Either my watch has stopped or the patient is dead."

Culture isn't something automatic. It is something that comes into existence when large numbers of individuals start to live together and establish norms of behavior, speech and so forth. Immortals are almost the exact opposite of this. Their number compared to that of humans is very small and they often live in isolation to the point where they even hide from one another. In this kind of existence it makes sense that individual Immortals would want to borrow culture in order not to be alone.

The Moderator: Errr, while I appreciate computer geekiness, by now this is so far off topic that maybe you could continue this in a new thread in the Off Topic forum? ~tOH.