Mmmkay, as of right now, I believe…I think…I hopehopehopeHOPE that I have the Greatest Hits section unfucked—insofar as it’s ever gonna be, at any rate. Also, y’all might have noticed a new NavBar link to the right, yclept Miscellany. As that page’s intro blurb says, I intend it to be “A page for links to the things that need to be here, but just don’t seem to fit anywhere else.” Only two items therein at the moment, but I’ll find more stuff to populate it as time moves ever on.

Update! One thing you’ll see regarding the brand spanking new, bestest EVAR GH section is that all the old “Wayback Machine” links have been replaced with new Pages hosted rat-cheer at CF. Probably won’t make a huge difference to anybody but me, but still.

Attentive CF Lifers may already have noticed our latest addition, findable at not-quite-bottom left in Ye Aulde CF Blogrolle section: Substack Scalawags, featuring whippersnappers who have cast aside the creaky, crotchety, arthritic old WP “weblog” gizmo for that newfangled Substack whatsit all the kids are talking about nowadays. Check it out, loads of excellent stuff in there.

So I go into the hospital for a cpl weeks, get cut, sawn, and stitched upon a bit, emerge a good bit the worse for wear, have to go back in for an encore performance, emerge thinking what the hell, Death CAN’T be THIS busy, can he? During this agonizing interregnum, natch, I avoided all things Innarnuts like the proverbial plague, knowing as I do that A) a thorough cleaning-out of the mental pipes is a good and necessary thing now and again, and B) my worn-out, Amazon’s Cheapest wired keyboard and mouse rig was due to give up the ghost at any moment.

When what to my wondering eyes did appear, upon my exit from Hospital Durance Vile and re-entry into what some poor deluded souls are pleased to kid themselves is the Real World, but a PayPal account that had, for reasons unknown to me, absolutely blown the fuck UP over the past weekend, rocketing from a running daily balance of, basically, zero (0) dollars and no (0) cents, up to a pretty hefty surplusage in nothing flat.

Pulled 40 bucks from the slush pile right away and headed back to the ‘Zon to see if a more satisfactory keyboard/mouse siuation might be arranged, whereupon I picked up this sweet little rig. Now all’s I gotta do is get used to the feel of the keyboard, which is definitely nowhere near as stiff and clunky as the old one was—with the added advantage that most, possibly even ALL, of the keys seem to work too. Yowza!

Many, many humble thanks to all you fine folks out there in Blogolandia, for all the many things you do and have always done for me over lo, these many years. Back to regular posting in a trice, soon as my head stops spinning like a spinning top.

Y’all may or may not notice, but I just implemented a CSS tweak which should—SHOULD—make all links display in boldface site-wide, as well as the regular old blue color. Had a few of y’all older-eyes types complain after the yearly switch-over from Scrooge Picard to the Angry Guy theme about not being able to see the links too good, so hopefully this will help a little with that. Shouldn’t be too terribly intrusive otherwise, I don’t think. That is all, as you were.

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Our pal Midwest Chick posts a meme that reminded me of one of the very first entries in my “Greatest Hits” collection which I haven’t looked at in a VERY long time now. It’s a satirical piece I put together way before the Babylon Bee was even a twinkle in the esteemed and estimable Seth Dillon’s pants. A wee dram:

ICC and the Dark Lord
Frodo Lives!

From The Guardian (ahem):

Frodo Baggins Charged With War Crimes

Frodo Baggins of Bagshot Row, Hobbiton, The Shire, Middle Earth, has been called before the International Criminal Court to answer charges of war crimes brought by Sauron the Dark Lord and Saruman the White in a joint filing.

Baggins refused comment on the matter from his home at Bag End, simply moaning and holding his head. But his former valet and gardener (now mayor of Hobbiton) Samwise Gamgee spoke with reporters from his “bit of garden,” saying that “you people ought to know better, coming here bothering my master and trampling my taters and all. This is just about the dumbest thing I’ve heard of since Master Merry and Master Pippin started up that Broadway show of theirs. That didn’t work out so well, either, but all’s well as ends better, as my Gaffer used to say.” Gamgee was referring to the spectacular failure of “Mount Doom – the Musical,” which debuted on Broadway last year and closed the same night, bankrupting its producers and principal investors Meriadoc Brandybuck of Buckland and Peregrine Took of the Tookland, both in the Shire.

The charges brought by Sauron and Saruman are serious and were commented on at length by the Dark Lord himself at a press conference held after he delivered the formal papers to the Court. As a full signatory to the Court’s original charter, Sauron is legally entitled to bring charges before the Court, and the Court’s decision will be binding on Mr. Baggins, per the charter establishing the authority of the Court over the entire world, whether the particular defendant lives in a member country or not. The Shire has repeatedly refused to ratify a proposal to join the Court; the proposal has languished in the legislature, bogged down by stalling tactics employed by right-wing and unilateralist legislators intent on blocking it. Gondor and Rohan have likewise not joined the ICC, for similar obstructionist reasons.

“Mr.Baggins is guilty of some of the most egregious violations of International Law as expressed in the Court’s founding documents and must be brought to answer for his inhumane actions,” Sauron said from the cardboard box behind the Emyn Muil 7-11 he’s been living in since the scandalous and irresponsible destruction of Sauron’s Ruling Ring brought about the downfall of his Empire several years ago. “He’s obviously guilty of violating several provisions of Article 8, Section 2, especially the ‘outrage against personal dignity’ clause and the ‘excessive incidental death, injury or damage’ clause. When the armies of the Western Alliance marched up to the Black Gate, they were guilty of making illegal aggressive war against a sovereign nation. Our legal team plans to bring separate suits against Aragorn son of Arathorn, the Elfstone King Elessar of Gondor. Also King Eomer of the Riddermark and Elrond Halfelven of Rivendell. But we chose to pursue the suit against Baggins first, since his was the most damaging and egregious crime.”

Those of y’all who have been out of knee britches for a while will no doubt remember the foofaraw over the establishment of the UN’s so-called “International Criminal Court,” which provided the inspiration for my Frodo On Trial post—which turned out to be wildly popular, garnering links from outlets as far afield as NRO, WSJ, and pretty much everybody else you can think of. MC’s MiQ (Meme in Question):

Heh. Great minds…