We don't watch Fox in this house

Thursday 7/24/25

The Red Sox-Cubs game was on the other night when my mom was at my sister's babysitting the kids. She went to put it on, Charlie said it was on Fox, and Lilah said something like, "We don't watch Fox in this house," which made me laugh when I found out about it. Different Fox, Lilah!

Yesterday, I was outside of the Monument, stretching and waiting for it to open, when a ranger came over to me and said, "We missed you yesterday."

I was confused, and asked, "You were open yesterday?"

Turns out--and this is mildly frustrating--that the Monument has been open on Tuesdays for about a month. The signs still say Wednesday to Sunday. The ranger told me that the updated info was on the website.

But I'd be about the last person to go to that website at this point, wouldn't I? What reason would I have? It's not like I'd think the signs were wrong. That wouldn't make sense.

Ironically, I'd be about the last visitor to know they were open on Tuesdays, if a ranger hadn't said something to me or unless I took a walk over there on a Tuesday for the walk, and then discovering that the Monument was indeed open. I've walked on Tuesdays, but not in that direction. Most people who go would check the website first, because they're planning a trip. They've never been or not been in a long time. They're from Missouri.

This doesn't change much. I'm sure if I'd gone on those Tuesdays I would have done five instead of ten on other days. Still, there are weeks where I'd rather go six times than five and would prefer to most weeks, I think, especially with them opening at ten.

I did ten circuits in the Monument yesterday, as well as 150 push-ups, and walked three miles.

A person who writes "ur" for your is never to be taken seriously or worth the time, the effort, the look, the anything.

Same goes with a person who uses "feels" for as a noun, as in, "I make art for the feels."

People really need to stop saying "master class." It's just a watered-down trite-ism. Stock compliment from someone who doesn't really mean what they say because they're not actually thinking about what they're saying.

South Park: Oh, Colbert made you mad? Stephen?

Stephen Colbert: Yes?

South Park: Hold my beer.

People are so insufferable and unclever. Almost without exception. Click on the bio, and what do you see, but "Resist." Sure. Are people so stupid that they're all just able to fool themselves? But that will get 1000 likes, because...what do you know...it's so fucking stupid and witless. And that's what wins online. And everywhere now, for that matter.

Doesn't even make sense, does it? That's not how that moronic "hold my beer" construction works.

There's no bigger problem in the world than willing human stupidity. No one has to be as stupid as they are. They choose to be. And are okay with their choice. Despite usually hating their lives as a result.

I tried to enter create a filter on Threads for the words "South Park" because I couldn't care less--and no, I don't think this is "genius" or society-impacting insight and a call-to-arms and all of the rest of it--but these filters don't work. I think that's what people now half-assedly think are those things because people can't tell anything anymore. And standards are so low as to be non-existent.

I'd say that on average, people who listen to the Grateful Dead tend to be smarter, but they sure love to say "very unique" and "it's really unique" and "more unique." Never qualify the word "unique." Conan Doyle loved to do this, and it drives me crazy. Your options are unique." By itself. That's it. Sorry.

The stupider someone is, and the more helpless with language, the likelier they are to say, "Language is fluid."

Most things that people say are about covering their own ass. Building in excuses for themselves.

Saw this post from a writer this morning: "Community not competition."

Says so much about these cowards, doesn't it? Can't have competition. Your best against my best, may the better person win. Hell, no. What is meant by community, too, is discrimination, locking out, and the gatekeeping of the lunch table of broken, talentless freaks who are all equally unthreatened by each other because each of them sucks at doing this thing.

You go on the Threads home page, and you get a summary of what's important in the world today via AI. What a shit show. What a shallow shit show, and yet, there's so much shit. And in the majority of these bullet point type of items, you'll get the verb "faces." "Colin's ball sack faces criticism..." Etc.

Poe cracked wise once about Boston, saying its hotels were terrible, the pumpkin pie there was delicious, and the poetry was bad. Kind of amusing. This was Poe in jape mode, which you get quite a bit of in his criticism that hardly anyone reads and virtually no one now knows exists. It's probably his best writing, though he can grate on you. Critically, Poe was less trustworthy than Bierce. Both wanted to pop people, but that desire got the better of Poe more so than Bierce. You're reading for the writing, though, rather than the viability of the assessments.

The Boston quip reminded me of a high school teacher of mine, who'd tell the class that what they read was very funny. This would be with Shakespeare. Then kids would make jokes about that.

Downloaded Jimi Hendrix's complete studio output--or all of the available studio outtakes, that is--from 1969 and 1970. Also a three-disc set from a couple years ago I'd been looking for from the Cherry Red label of Beatles covers.

I like to note when I experience the first sign of autumn in the air. This occurred on Tuesday, when I was heading towards a park by the water and passing through the shade, with a strong breeze blowing in the other direction. There was that moment of, "Hmmm, jacket weather," and a hint of that autumnal smell in the air. Not straight up autumn, with its decaying leaves, but a harbinger of that tang, that smoke. This first sign does not mean, of course, that it's not going to be a muggy soup come the next day, but it's to be welcomed anyway.

There was a rabbit happily eating grass by a bench the bench in the shade where I like to sit, and I simply walked around this rabbit, with my back somewhat to it, so that it wouldn't be disturbed, and I sat down and it kept eating just a few feet away from me.