Hey y’all, watch this!

The CF Fall Begathon is back, baby!

Posted on September 10, 2023October 1, 2023 by Mike

For many years, I did two fundraisers per annum here, one in the Spring and one in the Fall. I fell off that wagon a few years back, and haven’t really thought much about it since, seeing as how the fine, fine folks at Hosting Matters up and cut me a seriously sweet deal on hosting after I’d repeatedly gotten into serious arrears with them.

Alas, now that I’m without any real income other than the pitiful few shekels brought in by this h’yar blog and the Eyrie, I find myself forced to reinstate the Fall fundie at least; renewal of the domain name is coming up soon, and I’m ashamed to say that I’m broke as a joke and without other prospects.

That being the case, then, I must with great regret extend the battered tin cup in y’all’s direction and beg for alms. The donation links are at the top of the blog, as you’ve no doubt noticed; I ditched PayPal a while back, although my account with them is still active. Offensive an imposition as it no doubt is, I’ll affix this post up top for the remainder of the month; don’t know what that will mean for the Donnybrook post, having two designated “sticky” posts up there. We’ll see how it goes.

Update! Hey hey hey, the two-sticky-post thing seems to be working just fine. Looks like the old dog just learned hisself a new trick.

Hail Mary update! Since response to the Fall Begathon so far has fallen what you might call way short of overwhelming, in desperation I’ve reinstated the PayPal donation links both above and in the sidebar. Hit ‘em early, hit ‘em often. My thanks to the readers in advance.

Goin’ down for the last time update! Last day for the Fall Begathon will be tomorrow, the 30th; I’ll be renouncing this post’s “sticky” status sometime on Sunday, after which it’ll sink down out of the way, something I know y’all will be as happy about as I admit I’m a-gonna be. If nothing else, a lot of pain-in-the-ass scrolling will be eliminated thereby. So we got that going for us, anyhow.

My sincerest and most humble thanks to all of you who paved your way to Heaven with good intentions via parting with a little of your hard-earned gelt to help out the World’s Greatest One-Legged Blogger in his time of direst need. As always, I remain awed and grateful by/for the generosity of my readers, in terms of both financial considerations and your kind attention.

The total take this time out was a good bit less than that of Begathons past here, which usually only ran for a week or two. Not that I’m complaining, mind, not a bit of it. In these, the days of the Biden Economic MIRACLE!™, such hardship is only to be expected. Things are pretty tough out there nowadays for just about everybody, no matter what Praetorian Media wants us all to believe. And hey, in the lean times every little bit helps, right? Right.

And now, the confession even a blind man coulda seen coming, given the title of this h’yar update: The main point here, gang, was really to provide me with an excuse (as if any were needed) to repost one of the verymost classics of the classic-rock oeuvre. Hell no, I ain’t ashamed of this cheap little subterfuge of mine; I’m PROUD of it, dammit! Why do you ask?

What a great tune that is. Funnily enough, out of all the who-knows-how-many bands I’ve shared stages with over the years–including several top-line classic rock acts such as BTO and Blue Oyster Cult as well as latter-day small-fry types who covered the music of the original masters–I cannot for the life of me recall ever seeing a single band attempt that Head East nugget in their set. Dunno, must be that cheeseball synthesizer line, which is absolutely vital to the song. Or those tight, crisp vocal harmonies, maybe—which, y’know, ditto.

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Kick out the JAMS

Posted on September 5, 2023September 5, 2023 by Mike

Okay, since the Tik-Tok video worked out nicely, let’s find out how YewToob fares.

Cooool, dude.

That’s the mighty Fu Manchu, king of the stoner-rock bands. I tremendously dig how hard they work a groove consisting entirely of one (1) chord, going from a seemingly mild, almost bland intro, building up the tension until by the fadeout my neck hurts from violently thrashing my head as if I had any hair to be tossing. A bio bit on the boys:

Fu Manchu is an American stoner rock band, formed in Orange County in 1985. The band underwent multiple lineup changes throughout the 80s and 90s, but has remained consistent since 2001. The band currently consists of founding guitarist turned lead vocalist Scott Hill, bassist Brad Davis, lead guitarist Bob Balch and drummer Scott Reeder.

Fu Manchu have been long associated with the Palm Desert Scene, alongside bands such as Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss and Mondo Generator. Monster Riff has described the band as “one of the most loved and revered…bands in the stoner rock world.”

Indeed, and deservedly so too. But what is this “stoner rock” of which I speak, you ask? Oh, just this:

Stoner rock is typically slow-to-mid tempo and features a heavily distorted, groove-laden bass-heavy sound, melodic vocals, and “retro” production. Due to the similarities between stoner and sludge metal, there is often a crossover between the two genres. This hybrid has traits of both styles, but generally lacks stoner metal’s laid back atmosphere and its usage of psychedelia.

For my money, Monster Magnet and Fu Manchu represent the tippy-top of the stoner-rock heap. An amalgamation of late-60s/early-70s hard rock a la DPurp, Sabbath, Zep, and Hawkwind, cranked up to 11 by the breakneck intensity of late-70s/early-80s punk—really, what’s there for a guy like me not to like here? Next up, my all-time fav-o-rite Fu Manchu tune.

One could be forgiven for not expecting subtlety from the above description of the genre they’re working in, and maybe one would be right at that. But take careful note of how, after using a choppy staccato throughout the first verses, the bassist transitions during the guitar solo to a pounding, single-note legato throb. Meanwhile, the vocalist begins the breakdown section in a conversational near-whisper, working up an octave until he’s reached a frantic bellow. The drummer swaps out his high-hat for the ride, then starts in wailing on the crash cymbal like it just stole his girlfriend. The lead guitar wraps the party up with a series of vicious, bent-string squalls.

All that doesn’t come together by accident, y’know; while it may not be what Frank Sinatra would think of as subtle, it’s subtle enough for rock and roll.

Theme switcher implemented!

Posted on September 5, 2023September 5, 2023 by Mike

I gotta tell ya, this WordPress software, for all I’ve commiserated with other blogger friends of mine about certain decidedly unlikeable aspects of it, is one hell of a piece of blogware. Remember how last night I mentioned, in the throes of exhaustion and eyeball-ache, that I’d need to find a way to offer a Desktop/Mobile choice since this new-to-me theme I’m using was utter shite when viewed in my Android browser?

WELL. Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy: all’s I had to do was install a theme-switcher plugin—of which there are dozens available out there, free of charge—capable of detecting what platform the site is being viewed in and then automagickally switching back to the old theme I’d been using for years for any sail-foam OS so as to display the site to much better advantage, albeit sacrificing some of the newer theme’s functionality. Tested it on my own phone, works like a charm, no glitches, no hassles. Amazing thing, this modern world we live in, innit?

And to think, before you know it it’s gonna be time for the Halloween à la Coop theme, then Scrooge Picard. Oh, the fun we shall have…

Publick Announcemente

Posted on September 4, 2023September 5, 2023 by Mike

No Eyrie tonight, sports fans. Over the weekend I ran across a nice-looking WP theme that I’ve been piddling around with, trying to shoehorn Ye Olde CF Blogge into the thing so’s it’ll work right. The theme has lots of pretty nifty-galifty customization options and features but, being based on a fluid layout scheme instead of the fixed-layout the old one has, there’s a right fair amount of jiggery-pokery to be done here before it’ll work properly. Figure on some unexpected wonkery to be going on hereabouts, as I ladle out generous dollops of skull-sweat attempting to get this little birdie to fly.

Update! Okay, this is turning out to be a right royal pain in the ass—for some unfahtomable reason, the central column wants to float over to the left, thereby obscuring part of the Butthurt Report Form, which is just completely unacceptable. Also, for some other unfathomable reason, the antiquated Feedreading Blogroll widget, which I haven’t been able to make work properly for a long time now and eventually just gave up on, actually works with this theme…assuming the linked blog even HAS an RSS feed, which apparently no Blogspot blogs do. Go figger.

Well whaddya know about that update! It appears that some Blogger sites DO have RSS feeds, and then again some of ‘em don’t. I repeat: go figger.

Oh fer cryin’ out loud update! Well dammit, even though options for such are mentioned here and there in the settings, this new theme is utterly useless for sail foams, near as I can make out. Need to figure out a way to implement a Desktop/Mobile switcher somehow, but it ain’t gonna be tonight, I’m just about tuckered. Plus, I think my poor old eyeballs might actually be bleeding at this point. Been a while since I did any website tinkering at this level, I fear.

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The infamous mug shot

Posted on August 25, 2023 by Mike

Everybody seems to be talking about how grim and stone-faced Trump looks in his official Fulton County mugshot, but I don’t see what the problem is. He looks pleasant enough to me, even happy:

TrumpMugAlt

Core image, which I may have Gimp’d around with just a wee touch, swiped from Divemedic.

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Mea culpa, kinda-sorta

Posted on August 14, 2023 by Mike

Off to a late start today, thanks to a miserable night spent being tormented by phantom pain in my no-longer-extant left foot, which kept me up and screaming out loud beginning at about 3-3:30 AM and carrying on non-stop until damned near four this afternoon. That shit ain’t no joke, folks, trust me on this one. Having watched my GF’s father go through it during my immediately-post-high-school years, I thought I understood that as well as anybody could, but now I know: until you’ve actually dealt with it yourself, you really have no idea.

Now to see if anything out there lights my blog-posting fire…

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Back to the boards

Posted on July 22, 2023July 22, 2023 by Mike

KEYboards, that is, courtesy of my close friend Jeremy, who gifted me with an old electronic keyboard today (as in piano, not compooter) and got it all hooked up and working through Logic Pro on Ye Aulde iMac.

I do declare, but this thing is truly wondrous. Thanks to the Logic software, there is literally no sound this marvel can’t convincingly reproduce, from barroom-beater upright to Steinway grand to cheeseball Wurlitzer electric pianny to the venerable and beloved Hammond B3/Leslie cab combo. And that’s before you even get around to…well, essentially every musical instrument there is, as well as human voices, to include a whole slew of odds and sods even I’ve never heard of before. Which, trust me, is saying something.

The options are so numerous and varied that, as I told Jerm, one could easily spend an entire hoomon lifetime piddling around with them and only barely manage to scratch the surface. So if the blogging seems to suffer over the next, oh, several years, you’ll know why.

Oh, and since somebody mentioned those cheesy, greasy old Wurlitzers, here’s what has to be the world’s most well-known example of the correct deployment of one.

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Testing 1…2…1…2…

Posted on July 18, 2023 by Mike

Hey hey hey, looks like we’re back in the Internet business again here at CF CaC. Cool! More to come, folks, stay tuned.

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Publick Announcemente

Posted on July 16, 2023July 16, 2023 by Mike

Blogging is likely to be disrupted the next cpl-three days due to my modem having been taken out by dint of violence, presumably owing to the godawful storm we had day before yesterday. Said storm was no joke, let me tell ya; I’ve always purely loved a good thunderstorm on a summer afternoon, and this one was a real sockdolager. I was just lounging around on the bed reading when all of a sudden-like there was a blinding flash, with an almighty CRAAACK! near-simultaneous with it, indicating a strike VERY close by. There being a small stand of woods betwixt my place and the street, I assumed there’d be a smoking ruin where once a tall pine had stood.

Which is when my connection to the Innarnuts became a smoking ruin as well. I went into the living room to check the modem, and every light on the little black box was flashing madly, as if to piteously whimper HELP…ME! HELP…ME!

After fruitlessly trying to contact my ISP all day yesterday via their alleged “24-7-365” tech “support” line—Comporium, the local ISP, is renowned amongst all those forced into using them as being one hundred and ten percent not worth a stinking shit, in my experience a reputation which is thoroughly justified*—and getting nowhere, I gave up and resigned myself to having to wait until Monday to see what, if anything, might be done. Meanwhile, I’m using my phone’s Hospot function for internet access.

So yeah, if things should suddenly go dark for a spell here at Ye Aulde Colde Furye Blogge, you’ll know why. I’ll try to dish out all the free ice cream via Hotspot I can today and tonight, just to tide everybody over during the lean and hongry spell I see a-coming.

*When I was living in CLT, pretty much everybody I knew bitched loud and long about how awful Time Warner/Spectrum was, which I never could quite grok; once you got past the hassle of having to wait weeks for your install appointment, they were a-okay by me, I never had problem One with ‘em

Mike’s Iron Laws

Posted on July 10, 2023July 10, 2023 by Mike

A while back I threatened to collect all the ones I’ve mentioned so far into one handy-dandy post, just to be funny. Then, at BMNT last night (Begin Morning Nautical Twilight, the witching hour when the US military likes to initiate an attack, for all sorts of very good reasons) when I had been forced out of bed to take a(nother) leak, I remembered that pledge, and decided to just go ahead and do this thing already.

After the results of a local CF search were in, I was a bit surprised at how many times I had deployed this schtick of mine; sometimes the MILs had been given a number designation, sometimes they hadn’t. Heck, somewhere back in the deepest mists of time I even established a separate category for the things, in preparation for the day when I’d finally get around to creating this compendium.

So without further mucking about, I present to you all the MILs I could scavenge—directly quoted from the post they originally appeared in, in no particular order, with a link to the post of origin.

Mike’s Iron Law #873: They will NOT stop. They will have to BE stopped.
Mike’s Iron Law #847: “Government health care” is not about either health, or “caring.”
Another of Mike’s Iron Laws: Elect all the Republicans you like, then sit back and watch as nothing changes.
Mike’s Iron Law Numero Uno: Revolution is a process, not an event.
Mike’s Iron Law #4296-54e, addendum 67: If shitlibs didn’t have distortions, distractions, and outright lies, they’d have nothing to say at all.
Another of Mike’s Iron Laws: Place not your trust in government. For it is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.
Mike’s Iron Law #187: There’s always a workaround, and true Americans will always be able find it.
Mike’s Iron Law #1,246: Whenever Progressivists win, America loses.
One of the most important of Mike’s Iron Laws: Anything that rankles the Left can only be good for America.
Yet another of Mike’s Iron Laws, in the form of a Biblical rejiggering: Thou shalt not suffer a Communist to live.
Another of Mike’s Iron Laws: You cannot placate the implacable, nor sate the insatiable. It’s a mistake to even try.
Mike’s Iron Law #1: Never cede ANYTHING to the Left, not a single goddamned thing.
Mike’s Iron Law for dealing with the Left: They will never be satisfied, no matter what you yield up to them.

And that’s a wrap, kids—for now. Looking back over this list, it’s a thing of wonder and amazement to me that, even though I was just making the whole danged thing up as I went along, I somehow avoided repeating any of the numbers except for Number One/Numero Uno. Not sure how I managed to pull that one off.

Update! I think I’m gonna create a new WP Page, which will show up as a navbar link at the top, so’s I can add new MILs as they occur to me. That’ll archive all of them in one convenient place, for posterity’s sake.

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Publick Notice

Posted on June 27, 2023 by Mike

No posting yesterday, due mainly to extreme lethargy and ennui, and probably none tonight either. What with the daily rush of one damned thing after another which seems to constitute life here at stately Totleigh Towers Hendrix Manor, I gots me some serious recharging of the batteries I need to be doing. Free ice cream delivery will resume tomorrow. Thanks for your patience and consideration, y’all…

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Eyrie WAAAAY up!

Posted on June 25, 2023 by Mike

The previous Eyrie hit record, set but a cpl-three weeks ago by the “Dumping Trump” installment, has been blown right up and left spinning in the dust like Wile E Coyote (Supergenius!) by this past Friday’s edition (“Secession tour de force”), driven by the selfsame force of Nature: a most gracious endorsement from our good friend Concerned American over at WRSA, which I didn’t know had even happened until just now. Dig it!

SeceshScores

Note that, as confirmed in the above screen-cap, this was as of 7:45 on Friday evening, so the view tally is sure to have vaulted even higher since. In fact, here’s what the Eyrie overall stats look like for the month of June, with the tremendous impact of dat sweet, sweet WRSA linky-love more than evident.

Screen Shot 2023 06 25 at 9 48 46 PM

Says so much, wouldn’t you say? Once more, my sincerest and most humble thanks go to CA, as well as all you readers—for the stat-boost as well as, y’know, all the fish.

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Moar fun with language

Posted on June 23, 2023June 24, 2023 by Mike

The debate earlier this week about the proper use, intentional misuse, and abuse of the English language got me thinking about another fun aspect of this: phrases people use all the time that actually mean the exact opposite of, negate, or otherwise contradict the sentiment expressed by the words. Examples:

Forgive me for saying
With all due respect
I really shouldn’t say this
No offense/pun/irony intended
Not for nothing, but

CF linguistic scholars should feel free to add more in the comments as and when they occur to you. I look forward to seeing what y’all reprobates come up with.

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A real, ummm, Donnybrook

Posted on June 22, 2023June 22, 2023 by Mike

DANG! 73 comments so far in our DD feature, with a few days left to go still? You folks are rocking it for sure! Mostly Barry and kenny, as always, with a few other of our CF Lifers weighing in as well, all of whom I am most gratified and grateful to have along for the ride. Keep up the fine work, everyone!

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Ask and ye shall receive

Posted on June 12, 2023June 12, 2023 by Mike

In the comments to the “Punisher” post below, Old Grandpa says:

I guess I need to purchase a shit ton of Punisher skull stickers and cover every “rainbow” sticker I see… adding “BFYTW” to them.

To which I responded:

You just gave me the idea for my next Gimp project, OG. 😉 I’ma get cracking on that toot sweet; results will of course be posted here when I’m done. Thanks!

And that’s just what I did, whipping this up in nothing flat:

Punisher skull small

It’s possible I may think of something more to add to it later, but for now this will do. You can snag a plus-size, higher-res version suitable for printing, making into stickers, wrapping fish, puppy-training, whatever your black and scheming little heart desires, by clicking here.

Update! Ahem. Just sayin’, that’s all.

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