what mid-August and not one post?

Well this blog is never going to have many regular posts. It's a secondary blog. Really I'm having problems with ideas (actually ideas pop up often, it's following up with words and sentences and whatever that is tougher) for just one blog.

 

For reasons not yet revealed, 2023 has really sucked the oxygen from the room.

 

Here's a quick post. I completely agreed with Jim Gaffigan his latest rant.

An old idea

 

I've been known to enjoy left-overs. 

So what's a memory of a good laugh? A left-over laugh?

 

long and winding road

 I just noticed that I failed to post anything up here on my alternative forgotten blog this year.

Listening to music always inspires a few extra thoughts in my mind. I like analogies. They often provide alternative views of life.

Most everyone has been on a long and winding road but we have also been in/on other places too. How about a life analogy being:

• a muddy ditch
• a steep slippery path
• a raging flood
• a crashing ocean wave
• a lazy river
• a freezing winter blast of snow
• a dark room with scattered Lego bricks
  

Now you might recall The Beatles wrote and sang "The Long and Winding Road". However, Sheryl Crow, wrote "Everyday Is A Winding Road".

Everyday is a winding road
I get a little bit closer
Everyday is a faded sign
I get a little bit closer to feeling fine

must face it

 I might as well face it. I'm an old white man!

Paul Simon - Still Crazy After All These Years

Yeah, still crazy.

 

a little color

 Trying out a few GIFs with color.

 

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

Now it's an OLD habit

ooh ooh oh oh you don’t have to Blog

But I continue to post. Not nearly as much as years ago when it was more popular with more readers. 

I never posted much on this blog. BUT WAIT MINUTE - I still have TWO active blogs??

Yes. Once in awhile I go back and read old posts. It's recorded personal history. Here's a past post on this blog explaining my blogging habit. https://blogicant.blogspot.com/2013/05/ooh-ooh-oh-oh-you-dont-have-to-blog.html

"the zig-zagging road of progress" - I recently read that phrase on a FB post. Is it a more accurate than "the long and winding road"? Are we even on a road? Maybe it's a muddy ditch. I don't know but that's a thought I had today so in a future time I could come back here and remind myself.

Maybe it's a stairway?

good parody

Performer Jen Houston turned Cyndi Lauper song "Time After Time" into a Trump song parody "Crime After Crime."


While I found this parody funny the truth behind it is very sad. Trumpy Dumpty has ruined the office of President. Here's a few lines from the parody that were really good (or bad for the US)

Lying about everything
Don't matter if it's small or big

He's a thug, he's a crook
He's our president
Crime after crime

He's insane, narcissistic,
Can't help himself

Pardons dangled
To White House aides
To break the law
Grammar mangled
He's a grifter,  a crook,
That's our president
Crime after crime






While I have doubts the current impeachment process will get him thrown out, I hope at least it raises enough voter awareness and energy to have him and his loyal politicians lose their next election.

This parody needs more views.

Pick up the pieces

Pieces.
Not those Reese pieces.

Pieces of an idea. Pieces of the past. Pieces of a blog. Going to pieces.

How about a piece of music.

magnetize your blog

Now wouldn't that be great.  A magnetized blog would attract the correct orientated readers and repel the others.  However, people are typically orientated in many more than two ways.  Also, magnetizing would not affect the non-ferrous readers so it's not a perfect solution.

cows of a leather flock together

I found this post sitting there unpublished. Why didn't I bother to click the publish button? Was I planning more prose for its perfection? Did the bat signal go off and I needed to respond? Did I fall asleep at the keyboard?

2017 eclipsed by the moon

I'm so happy that my wife and I were able to witness the total eclipse of the sun last August.

I posted our eclipse story on my main blog - here's the link.

smartphones fail with star pictures

On Monday, Aug. 21, 2017 the shadow of the moon zipped across the continental United States (coast to coast) in about 1 and ½ hours. I heard the shadow’s speed was over 1400 miles per hour. 

The NPR video of the eclipse story captures the moment. We were all looking up and shared a common interest for at least a couple of hours. Yes the actual length of totality was 2+ minutes but the planning, travel, setting up took some people days.

Even though the same side of the moon always faces the earth, while we were enjoying totality of its shadow we were watching the dark side of the moon.




All that is now
All that is gone
All that's to come
and everything under
the sun is in tune
but the sun
is eclipsed by the moon.

they look at me as if I've lost my mind

I don't post as frequently as I did years ago. I'm fine with that. This leaves me wondering why I should bother to keep this blog which I never used as much as my main blog. Has it become digital virtual clutter? Is there such a thing?

no ruffled feathers here

Perhaps this blog has become like the finger paintings our kids made in kindergarten that for sentimental reasons we have kept for years. I created this blog. While I'll agree it's not the most creative work around, I'll still claim it as mine. It's probably better than my kindergarten finger paintings.

But where are the clowns
There ought to be clowns
Quick send in the clowns

dreaming my life away

Really?

Sheryl Crow co-wrote and sang about change 1997. Now if any of you have extra change please send it my way. Of course, that’s not the type of change her song is about (but it would do me good).

My favorite line from her song is:

“Hello it's me, I'm not at home,
If you'd like to reach me, leave me alone”

Great answer machine greeting, but very few still have answer machines today and even fewer leave voice messages. It changed.

my butterfly friend

It seems change happens quicker than ever before. Do you agree?

It could be I just have more time to observe and think about it. You know, watch the wheel go around.

I know there are times when events make you so busy you don’t have time to notice any change other than the next thing thrown at you. Those extreme busy times can end well. Like a fast spin on the merry-go-round it might make you merry or sick.

No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go

Those words were written by John Lennon. His song, “Watching the Wheels” is about taking it down a few notches, chilling out, relaxing, getting off a merry-go-round operated by an insensitive corporation. Or to put it in a way more applicable to myself - falling off the ladder of success.

Now I started with Sheryl Crow and ended up with John Lennon. It doesn’t seem odd to me at all. If the type of change that would do me good involved less stress and lazy days then I find the two songs go well together. They could be on the same playlist.
(note on my inspiration - I thought of the “Watching the Wheels” song on a visit to Middle Age Ramblings blog)


Here’s the lyrics and a youtube clip of John Lennon’s advice:

People say I'm crazy
doing what I'm doing
Well they give me all kinds of warnings
to save me from ruin
When I say that I'm o.k. well they look at me kind of strange
Surely you're not happy now you no longer play the game
People say I'm lazy
dreaming my life away
Well they give me all kinds of advice
designed to enlighten me
When I tell them that I'm doing fine watching shadows on the wall
Don't you miss the big time boy you're no longer on the ball
I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go
Ah, people asking questions
lost in confusion
Well I tell them there's no problem,
only solutions
Well they shake their heads and they look at me as if I've lost my mind
I tell them there's no hurry
I'm just sitting here doing time
I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go
I just had to let it go
I just had to let it go

 

still readable

Once upon a time bloggers stopped here. Their train doesn't stop here anymore. My train is only a train of thought and it's often derailed.
 
The above information may not be accurate.  This is the internet and you should not believe everything you read.

You know how those awful drug commercials need to read off the warnings. I believe our healthcare costs would be lower if we didn't have big pharma ads.

However those ads gave me an idea for this lousy political campaign season. All the political ads should require a statement, "The previous information may not be accurate. This a political ad with hype and disinformation."  

insert enticing title here

Well last year I posted twice on this back alley blog. I created this blog back when blogging was going strong. Now there are days when I wonder why I bother to blog.

I still get inspired to write down and share my odd thoughts. Do more odd thoughts show up on twitter these days? I'm not on twitter but I have read a few funny tweets I've found in tweet collections.

The internet, social media, gadgets all move too fast. You just start to get the hang of it and the world is on to something else. A day late and dollar short, it has been said.

jump

This year (only half over) finds me posting less and less.  If you would like to read more of my posts, I suggest you jump over to my main blog - A Few Clowns Short.

cows only jump for marketing

Jumping is a talent lost on me.  Even as a kid I failed to jump high.

Homo erectus I imagine was a great jumper.  So what, he didn't have free wi-fi and a laptop that allows me to jump over to youtube.

(As the Pointer Sisters sang) If you want more 
If you want more, more, more
Then jump for my blog
Jump in and leave a comment.

The Pointer Sister's can tell you better than me:

nothing is going to stop us now

Well my laptop battery running low often slows me down.

The song that shares this post title doesn't hold special memories or was one I even listened to much.  The reason it found it's way into this post is the title and pace of the song.  There is an inspirational motivational feeling to the song.

So now in 2015, approaching 30 years since the song's release, I'm still motivated to post in this sidelined blog.

blinded by lyrics

Some all-hot half-shot was headin' for the hot spot snappin' his fingers clappin' his hands 

And some fleshpot mascot was tied into a lover's knot with a whatnot in her hand 

And now young Scott with a slingshot finally found a tender spot and throws his lover in the sand

And some bloodshot forget-me-not whispers daddy's within earshot save the buckshot turn up the band

I remember the Manfred Mann version the best.  I only recently discovered that Bruce Springsteen wrote the song in 1973.

At the beginning of this clip Bruce offers some insight to his creation.

save the buckshot turn up the band

Now that's good advice!

not inspired to be inspirational

when shit happens

It seems that inspirational photos/writing/quotes are typically considered good things.  I don't know.  Do you think any inspirational posters were knocked to the floor by the bus?

I can't always take a picture either

When I setup this blog in the back alley of my main blog, I tried to see how many comments I could get on a single post.  I left the single post up there by itself for many months.  That first post has and probably will always have the most comments on this blog.  Finally it became time to move on to another idea, so I started to add more posts over time.  But this is not my main blog so I seldom post here.

Today this blog serves as a place for posts about blogging.  Typically I'll focus on my inabilities to create a good post.

Another popular post among the thirty or so posts laying around this back alley of a blog is "Scaramouche scaramouche will you do the fandango?"

I believe it's the title that people were browsing over to on that post.

So what brings you here?