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.

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…

Still bogged down with futzing around trying to get things back to whatever normal around here amounts to: deleting plugins, widgets, and themes I haven’t used in years, adding new, improved ones, and related activities. As such, there may or may not be an Eyrie post tonight, we’ll see. If I do find time and energy to do one, it’s likely to be short and sweet. That is all; as you were.

Most of you have probably noticed by now that, thanks to malefactor(s) as yet unknown, the site has been up and down over the last couple of days. The hosting company, Entirely Digital, is working on the problem now, and for my part I’ve changed my passwords, disabled comments on new posts, and deactivated all plugins for the time being. I suggest that those of you who have user accounts here change your own passwords too; may not help much with this particular issue, but what the hell, it’s just good practice regardless of what might be going on around here. More info as and when things develop, sorry for the hassles and headaches.

Just implemented over in the left sidebar immediately below Ye Aulde CF Blogrolle, something I used to have years back that somehow got lost in the shuffle, what with this, that, and the other: the CF Glossary section, wherein some of the sassy, snappy terminology I use quite a bit around these h’yar parts is explicated and/or defined.

Well, blast it, got Angry Guy restored in a relative jiffy, although for some bizarre reason Brave on the trusty iMac refuses to acknowledge the color-shift in the blockquote side-border from holiday green back to dark blue. On my sail foam said blockquote border is orange, can’t figure out why. Safari, which I practically never use, displays everything as it should be, so what the hell—damn the damn torpedos, group down and all ahead full for the nonce.

The other thing is, I failed to record the old colors for text, header backgrounds, links and/or hovers, and such-like and am therefore having to basically resort to the SWAG method as to what those might have been, with no better than so-so results. Some of it is…ehhh, fairly close, some of it…ehhh, not so much. Oh well, I’ll keep playing around until I get the place to where I can stand the sight of it. Feel free to offer your own yays, nays, and oh HELL noes in the comments section, of course and as always.

Update! HA! After multiple reloads, Option-reloads, and deletion of cookies and/or caches, Brave finally decided to straighten up and fly right. So, y’know, I got THAT going for me.

Not midnight yet, of course, but I didn’t want to let it get by me without wishing all y’all fine folks—CF Lifers and noobs alike, active participants, lurkers, and looky-loos—the happiest of New Years. May God bless you all; may Lady Fortuna smile upon you and yours; and may the wind be ever at your backs in the year to come.

In years past it’s been my custom to follow the Presley Rule with dear old Scrooge Picard. See, Elvis seriously loved himself some Christmas, so at Graceland every year he directed that the tree, lights, and decorations be left up all the way to January 8th, which was his birthday, so as to savor all the joy and comfort he could from the most wonderful time of the year.

I liked that idea pretty well myself when I read about it ages ago (is there anything more depressing than the day the lights, wreaths, and other such all come down and go back into storage and the tree goes out to the curb? My late wife Christiana, another Christmas kitten herself, used to literally burst into tears when we drove past all the discarded trees by the side of the road, bless her big, beautiful heart).

Sadly, my own birthday being not till February 5th, hewing to the underlying principle of the Presley Rule was simply out of the question, particularly back in the days when I could still afford to buy a live tree and still had the physical wherewithal to saw off the bottom part and rassle that bad boy into the tree stand. So I contented myself with a January 8th takedown date as well, which still made me a crazy freak in the neighbors’ eyes, probably.

This year, though, I’m thinking we’ll bid adieu for the nonce to Scrooge Picard and revert to the standard blue-on-blue Angry Guy arrangement at the end of this week. What the heck, I did put him up earlier than usual this year, so a likewise early exit seems at least somewhat appropriate. As always, expect problems during the changeover.

Update! Here’s what an old softie my Christiana was: one year, we went to the nearby garden center and purchased a live Fraser Fir a cpl-three months before December thinking we’d plant it, let it grow a while, then cut it down to use for that year’s Christmas tree. But, when December rolled around at last, she just couldn’t bring herself to have me chop the flourishing little tree down and bring it into the house! So we ended up buying a Christmas tree from the Methodist church close to us that year after all. Been a goodish while since I rode by our old Coulwood crib, but last time I did that no-longer-little Fraser Fir was still in the front yard, all fat and happy.

Here’s what CLT was like in those days: at said church and a fair few other places, the whole thing was done on the honor system: no attendant; each tree had a price tag tied to a limb; you picked out the one you liked, put the cash through a slot in a little cardboard box hung on the church’s side-door for the purpose, tied your tree to the car roof, and took it on home to be trimmed.

These days, the trees would all be gone the first night; the church’s cash-box would be empty; and everybody would be just shit out of luck, basically. Well, except for the tree-jackers who unloaded their stolen booty for a tidy profit back at the Section 8 ghetto-apartment complex that’d been hurriedly thrown together about two miles up the road from our house.

So bad did things get in the vicinity of those Darktown apartments that the little convenience store/gas station across the street—which Mount Hollians had been stopping at unmolested to grab gas, beer, and smokes for many years—quickly became a menacing, extreme-risk environment no sane, unarmed White person dared to even pull into at night. Nope, after the Section 8 complex went up you’d stomp the gas pedal to the floor and get the hell outta there just as fast as you could. After midnight you might slow down for the red light at the intersection if you were feeling especially bold, but no way would you come to a full stop and wait for it to go green. Not if you knew what was good for you, you didn’t.

The store’s parking area was veritably carpeted with shattered Colt 45 malt-liquor bottles, OE 800 cans, candy bar wrappers, chip bags, and empty Newport packs; the lot was packed with pimped-out Buricks, Caddies, and Lincolns, doors open wide, rap “music” thundering at chest-rattling volume from expensive subwoofers in the trunks. Inside, outside, and all around the store would be in full Chimp-Out mode, leering, jibber-jabbering Feral yoots with pants sagging to their knees and their twerking “ladies” all partyin’ hearty, yo!

The convenience store has long since gone out of business by now, I imagine, maybe even burned to the ground—leaving another “food desert” where once a tidy, well-kept place of business had stood. You damned RAYCISS© muffugizz!! ’N’ sheeit.