See You in January Probably

Merry early Christmas! Happy early Hanukkah! Like professional stock traders, I'm taking December off from the blog. If something big happens, I'll make an exception. For example, I now have a list of AI image generators that could be used to make covers. If I can get that working, I'll post. If I get the novella out the door, I'll post that. But, if it's ordinary things, I'll catch you up in January. It was a bad week, so there's nothing to report today.

Have a great weekend and great weekends the rest of the month.

Happy Black Friday!

Belated happy Thanksgiving! I'm low on time, so I'll be brief. It was another decent week on the writing front. Progress feels slow regardless, but it's getting done. I didn't score any great Black Friday deals. However, I got some extra cleaning done. It was still a win.

Have a great weekend.

Progressing

It was another good week on the writing front. I lost a little bit of time when the power went out, but it only cost me about ten or fifteen minutes.

I may have a solution for cover art. I've been following articles about using "AI" to generate images. They're getting good enough for things like cover art and video games. One of the articles showed some very good video game items. The best part is that if I'm the one making the images I get the copyright. As long as the generator doesn't use someone else's work, there's no problem with infringement. My plan is to mess around with it for the cover for the B'vellah War book 1.5 novella and see if I can make it work. Unfortunately, I may need a new video card. I noticed one of the image generators, Stable Diffusion(?) required 6GB of RAM. My card has 2GB. I've been needing a new video card for a while, but that's probably a $200 starting point. Maybe there will be a Black Friday deal I can find.

If I can make it work, I'll be updating all the covers, which would be a huge improvement. That would also be a good reason to expand to B&N, something I've been needing to do for years.

Have a great weekend.

A Better Week

Sorry about missing last week. I ran out of time. There was little to report anyway. This week on the other hand was a good week on the writing front. I'm expecting the same for this coming week.

The remnants of the hurricane blew through. I got very little sleep last night, about three hours. So, this is a short one.

Have a great weekend.

Extra Time

There was no blog last week because I ran out of time. I have a set time each week set aside to work on it, but sometimes real life gets in the way. I've been thinking of switching blog time to Thursday.

I requested an absentee ballot that I received, filled out and mailed back. I have voted. No political ads are relevant to me. Okay, they were always irrelevant. Does anyone really pay attention to those? Messages from politicians aren't reliable or trustworthy because politicians aren't reliable or trustworthy. If I won't listen to their free lies the rest of the year, why would I believe their paid lies?

One night I sat down to get some extra work done on the writing front. The power went out. Unbelievable. There was rain but no storm. Nevertheless, I was still able to get some extra done this week. Book 1.5, technically a novella, is basically done. I anticipate getting it out the door soon. Part of the problem with the B'vellah War trilogy is that some discrepancies have crept in. That means checking all books. Book 1.5 is now checked and fixed. Hopefully, it'll be up this week.

Have a great weekend.

LotR: The Rings of Snoredom

It was another week of progress on the writing front. I worked mostly on the B'vellah War 1.5 novella. Getting that out the door would be a good thing.

Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power can be summarized in one word: boring. Did you think that word was woke? That accusation dates back to before the series launched or anyone had watched. Is it woke? Well, hmm. One of the characters was so ugly I had to look to the side of the screen. The phrase uglier than homemade sin came to mind. It was mostly due to the actor's makeup and hairdo. Why would they do that unless it was to be deliberately offensive? When I was a kid, ugly actors could make it in Hollywood. The trend now is to use beautiful people. It makes that character even uglier. I wouldn't necessarily call the lore woke, but I'll point something out. There's an Iranian mother with a black child and a Puerto Rican boyfriend. If people think that aspect of the series is woke, then maybe it is.

“Three Snores for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their beds of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men, doomed to doze,
One for the Dark Lord in his dark bed
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Snore to rule them all, One Snore to find them,
One Snore to bring them all and in their slumbers bind them.
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.”

When the series started off slowly in episode one, I accepted it as establishing the worlds and the characters and the first act story elements. I was willing to accept it in episode two. Episode three looked like things were starting to happen. The train was finally leaving the station. I breathed a sigh of relief that things looked like they were picking up. Epsiode four bored me. That's when I knew season one was a flop. It's never gotten better.

What they're doing is having 30 or more seconds of landscape shots followed by minutes of characters sitting around engaged in soulful dialogue. Landscape panorama, dialogue, landscape panorama, dialogue. Yawn. There's character development in some of the dialogue, which makes it not so pointless. I'll admit not every scene can be fascinating, but there was a better way. I should've been gripped by the story and taken away to a magical land. I found myself hitting the fast forward 10 seconds button sometimes to get past the landscape.

However, the show has one good thing going for it. My absolutely favorite part of the series is Galadriel. I would go out with her. I might even buy her truffles and rub her feet. As much as she travels, I know they hurt.

Have a great weekend.

Chugging Along

In real life the week was unremarkable. On the writing front, I continued to make progress. I'm beginning to visualize getting B'vellah War Book 2 and the novella out the door. The novella takes place between books one and two. It's Book 1.5, and I may name it that. :) I don't have a timetable, but if I can keep getting enough done, I'm hoping it will be sooner rather than later.

 I'm kind of tired this week, so I'll let you go.

Have a great weekend.

Fixed the Leak

Sorry about missing last week. I had a toilet leak that ended up taking all available time. The wax seal had deteriorated over time. I ended up needing a new toilet due to multiple cracks that I've been aware of for a while but had been putting off in favor of things like dental visits to fix tooth abscesses. It was a lot of physical effort, but the leak is fixed.

I was able to put some extra time into the writing front this week. I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel yet, but I'm confident it'll be there.

I had a great test of the new fiber install. While looking at news, I ran across an article about some new video game I'll probably never play, Earth From Another Sun. It had a 27GB demo. I downloaded it. It took less than half an hour. Wow! With my old internet setup, it would've taken days for something like that. If I'm probably not going to play it, why get the demo? I want to see the game world. I used to play MMOs back in the day and enjoyed exploring game worlds. On the Bartle Test I'm an Explorer. I keep thinking that one day I'll get some games with big worlds and explore them. I still haven't even opened this new one yet. I'm getting around to it.

Have a great weekend.

The Rain Ends

It finally stopped raining this week. It had rained every day for at least a week and a half until Monday. Temperatures dropped after the rain moved out. One night it got down to 49 officially and 52 on my unofficial thermometer. Brr. Maybe the Farmer's Almanac is right, and it's going to be a cold winter until January.

Other than that I've been getting some house painting done. Because of all the rain and humidity, I had a mold outbreak. The end of the rain was a great time to break out the mold killing primer. Long-range forecasts are garbage, but there's no rain in the forecast the rest of the month, which is almost impossible, especially after all the rain this summer. We'll see.

I got a little done on the writing front. It's been slow going, but it's going.

Have a great weekend.

The Year Without Summer

In recent news the media has finally started reporting on the three-year la nina cycle that has been causing the high temperatures and drought in California and other western states but lower temperatures elsewhere. North Georgia where I live is one of those elsewheres. It's been a very cool, wet summer. Rainfall is 3+ inches above normal. But it's the temperatures I want to talk about.

Normally, summer temperatures are in the upper 90s or 100+, especially in July and August. This year, we had no summer. In June there were 7 days the temperature was 90 or higher. The highest high was 93, and only two days reached it. In July, according to official records, there were 9 days of 90 or higher with the highest high being 94 with only one day that hot. Twenty-nine days the lows were below 70 with one night hitting 59.  In August the temperature never rose above 89. In August in the south it never got into the 90s! All the lows were below 70 with the lowest being 59. Somehow, the sunshine was converted into rain. I have no doubts that rivers and lakes are full. The rain and humidity have been insane. If only I could sell rain to California. I'd be rich.

It's important to note that these are official temperatures from Accuweather. My personal thermometer claims it was in the low 70s multiple nights in August, and I don't remember it being over 90 nine days in July. Nevertheless, except for all the rain, skipping summer was awesome.

If all goes well, the Fiverr gig will be up and running this next week.

Have a great weekend.

Brief Update

I made a little progress on the writing front this week. It wasn't as much as I'd hoped. I had some sleep disruption and too much extra to do. I'm still tired.

It's been over a week with fiber internet. It's made life easier, but I still haven't had a huge software patch yet to see how fast it is. I did update one program but left it running while I did other things and forgot to check it. I watched it a little at first. Speeds were fluctuating wildly. I'm not sure why.

Have a great weekend.

At Last

The final piece of the fiber internet line was installed this week! And just in time. I was able to stop autopay on my 4G LTE internet phone two days before it was due. I was getting 5Mbps with LTE. Now, I'm getting 200Mbps or better. So far, I haven't had any major patches to download, so I'm still waiting to see how it does for that. I expect great things. TV works like a charm. No more setting up the hotspot on the phone and letting it connect while obsessing over the battery and hoping it connects to the right TV. I turn on the TV, and it just works. No more shutting down the hotspot and turning the phone off overnight. I can charge it for normal use. I actually was using two phones, one for internet and one for TV. All the hassle and stress are gone. It makes me feel better about life.

It was a better week on the writing front. I was able to put a little extra time into it. I have to make that happen every week.

Have a great weekend.

Almost Fiber

There's more progress on the internet front. The other day someone installed what I assumed was a fiber line from the electric meter area to the nearest electric pole. A coil of cable was left sticking up out of the ground. I thought it was going to be run inside later, but this week someone installed a box on the outside wall near the electric meter. The coil is gone. Whoever did it left a piece of cable on the ground. It's definitely a fiber line. The next step is someone showing up to come inside and do the router setup. I received email about that literally minutes ago and scheduled an appointment for Tuesday.

From ordering it to having internet was supposed to take 12 to 14 weeks. If Tuesday goes well, it'll have taken about three and a half weeks. It'll be 200Mbps. I've been struggling with 4G LTE at 5Mbps. That's enough to surf and download common things, but large files or patches take hours. Not that I have many of those. I have an alert on my phone to let me know if I hit 100GB. I never hit the alert.

I'm still recovering from the tooth extraction last week. I had to go back to the dentist where I had bone chips picked out of the extraction site. Though it had less poison and bothered me less, this one has been harder to recover from than the first one.

Nevertheless, I've made some progress on the writing front this week. It wasn't a great deal, but it's forward movement.

Have a great weekend.

Another Extraction

I had the second abscessed tooth pulled Monday. I could taste the poison once the process reached a certain point. It's been a long week. It's still bothering me.

I don't think I got anything done on the book front unless it was last weekend. I got a little done toward the Fiverr gig. I made some progress on a Udemy.com course that I bought as a training aid. I'm still not up and running with that. My hope is that, once the tooth is fully healed and I have more energy, I'll be getting more "extra" things done. It's hard to describe the fatigue involved with an abscess. It's basically a ball of poison in your body that your system is constantly fighting. It's kind of like that drained feeling caused by the flu. I'm starting to feel better and less tired. The dark circles under my eyes seem to be clearing up.

So, there is some possibly great news. Tuesday someone installed a line from the house to the nearest phone pole. By yesterday, I went out to see if perhaps there was a new box attached to the house. No, it was a coil of cable with the fiber internet company's name on it. Installation of fiber is supposed to take 12 to 14 weeks. Maybe it won't be so long after all. Having a stable, real internet connection will make things so much easier. It'll be 200Mbps instead of the 5Mbps cell phone internet I have now. No more waiting for downloads to complete. Full HD videos and TV. No more of not having internet every Saturday, Sunday and sometimes Friday. No more having to get in the right place to check the news on my phone. All of that and more, plus I need it for certain aspects of the Fiverr gig.

The last extraction took a little over a week to get past. This one didn't require stitches, but it bled much longer and has hurt more. I'm hoping next week is a good week.

Have a great weekend.

I Forgot to Mention

The internet disruptions in which I had no service via Verizon two Fridays in a row will be coming to an end. I forgot to mention last week that I mailed the paperwork to order fiber internet. I put it in the box Thursday night, July 28th. It was picked up the next morning. I got a confirmation email Monday. Now, I have to wait 12 to 14 weeks for installation.

Every Saturday, I have no internet service until about 7pm. Most Sundays are the same. Lately, Fridays have been affected. I'm using Visible for 4G LTE internet. Visible is owned by Verizon and is Verizon under a different brand name. Once fiber is here, I'm dumping Visible so fast their heads will spin.

Moving on. I've gotten more done on the book front. This was a better week for it. Progress is slow, but it continues.

Have a great weekend.

Long TIme No See

Last Friday and the Friday before that there was no internet service at all. Today, it was .08Mbps upload. I have a connection now, however.

There's not much to report on the book front. I've made more progress, but it's nothing to brag about. While I was away, I had a big sinus infection that affected the tooth with the abscess. It was terrible. The abscess seems to have settled down presently. There's a drama to it, but it's just not interesting. It's been a bad time recently.

Here's a picture I took in the driveway. It looks like two leaves, but it's actually one. Normally, they turn yellow all over. I've never noticed one with a green center. My guess, and only a guess, is that it was dying on the tree and fell off. I don't think the weather has anything to do with it. It's been a very cool summer with temperatures in the 80s for the most part. Usually, it's about 99F this time of year. It was about 90 yesterday and 78 right now because of the rain.

The worst weather was a heat spell in June in which it was in the 90s during the day and the 70s overnight with high humidity. Right afterward it dropped into the 50s two nights in a row, well below normal. There have been a few days in the 90s lately, but the forecast is showing 80s in the near term. The media focuses on the heat out west because of shortsighted political goals, but it's not like that everywhere else. The dog days of August are yet to appear, but I'm cautiously optimistic for a cool August and a great September.

Have a great weekend.

Yes, I Thought It was a Conspiracy

It was another week of incremental progress on the writing front. Considering how bad a week it was, I can't be too disappointed.

I ran across a few interesting news articles this week. I've mentioned before that gas prices are artificially high. I found a couple of articles to prove it. The first one is from the 1st: Biden adviser: ‘Liberal world order’ demands enduring high gas prices. “What do you say to those families who say, ‘Listen, we can’t afford to pay $4.85 a gallon for months, if not years. This is just not sustainable’?” “What you heard from the president today was a clear articulation of the stakes,” Deese answered. “This is about the future of the liberal world order and we have to stand firm." Ouch.

The second article from the 5th goes along with that. Oil from U.S. reserves sent overseas as gasoline prices stay high. "More than 5 million barrels of oil that were part of a historic U.S. emergency reserves release to lower domestic fuel prices were exported to Europe and Asia last month, according to data and sources, even as U.S. gasoline and diesel prices hit record highs." Ouch.

 The third article is about cl*m*t* ch*ng*. Rare 'triple-dip' La Niña could bring another year of intense hurricanes and drought to the US. "The cooler climate pattern is predicted to persist into a third winter." "After two years of La Niña — El Niño's cooler counterpart — the South Pacific may be facing a potential third appearance of La Niña in a row, which could bring more rainfall to an already-saturated eastern Australia and continue the trend of intense hurricane seasons along the east coast of the United States, and drought conditions in the country's southwestern states." In other words, the drought and high temperatures out west have nothing to do with cl*m*t* ch*ng*. They're because of a La Niña pattern. Temperatures have actually dropped in other locations. Every article that blames California's problems on cl*m*t* ch*ng* is propaganda.

Feel free to share these articles, especially the La Niña one. The mainstream media is censoring the facts.

Have a great weekend.

Incremental Progress 2

After a bad bout with the abscessed tooth, it's settled down, and I have a little more energy. Nevertheless, progress on all fronts has been slow this week. My next dental appointment is on the 12th. Hopefully, I can get something done. Internet speed is slow this Friday but not as bad as previous Fridays. I've put off ordering fiber internet because of the dental bills. Once I get past this next appointment, I'm tentatively thinking of putting the order in.

Have a great weekend.

Incremental Progress

It's another Friday of minimal internet connection. There's not much to report. Progress on the book front is slow. Progress on the Fiverr gig is slow. I've developed a second tooth abscess. I could use prayer for it. I'm very tired. I had a dental appointment but had to miss it and reschedule. If it doesn't get better over the weekend, I'm going to see if I can get an emergency appointment.

Have a great weekend.

More Progress

The internet is wonky today. I assume Verizon is upgrading the network. Progress continues on the writing front. It's not spectacular, but it's progress. I've also made a little progress on the Fiverr gig. It's still not up and running due to lack of equipment and more training that I've been needing. I had to replace a critical element that arrived only today. It can't be used without modifications, so another delay. Sometimes the hindrances feel supernatural. Keeping it short since my upload speed is 0.03Mbps.

Have a great weekend.

Why is Gas so Expensive?

Oil from the Middle East ships on tankers that take 90 days to travel to the U.S. It goes through a port of entry and is shipped to a refinery where it's stored for refining into gasoline. After it's refined, it's stored for shipping to gas stations. Counting the time it took from the original sale to get to the port of exit in the Middle East, the price at the pump is for oil that was bought about four months ago. Oil pumped in the U.S. can skip the 90 days of shipping, but that oil still takes time to pump, ship and refine.

Another way to put it is that there's a disconnect between the cost at the pump and the cost of the oil used to make that gas. A change in the price of oil has no affect on the price of gas already at the pump today. That oil is months away from being sold as gas. Is the public being gouged? Yes. Does the government care? No. Is this a coordinated plan between the Biden administration and oil companies? That's a good question. See: campaign contributions. Is the Biden administration allowing the gouging as a backdoor green energy policy? Undoubtedly.

The price of oil today is $120.70. The price of oil four months ago that is gasoline at the pumps today was $89.88. Why is gas so expensive?

Book Stuff

I got some work done toward the B'vellah War series. It wasn't anything to brag about. I found an error in book 1. Marion notices some dark stains on a sasquatch that he thinks are blood. In reality, he would automatically recognize blood by its colors. Ugh.

Fiverr Side Gig

I'm still working on getting that off the ground. As mentioned before, I don't have all the equipment I need. An $8 part arrived yesterday. I did some testing. It looks like I have enough to get by for now. If I can put some work into this weekend, next week could be when I finally get started. Once things are going is when I'll have more details.

Have a great weekend.

Moving Forward

I only got about four hours of sleep last night, so this is going to be short. May was a bad month. This month isn't quite as stressful, but I could still use a breakthrough. Nevertheless, I'm now moving forward with the B'vellah War series. Let's hope enough problems stay out of the way to get it wrapped up.

If everything goes well, I'll be able to get the second Fiverr gig going this upcoming week. If so, I'll have more details later. We'll see what happens. I'll still don't have the proofreading one up. The style guide I need to study is over 1,100 pages long. The second gig would pay more than proofreading. If I can get that one going instead, I'll save proofreading for my own work.

I need a new car in the worst way. If you believe in the power of prayer, I could use one. :)

Have a great weekend.

Ministry of Truth Rejected

Sorry about missing last week. I had about 0.5Mbps download speed and 0 upload. This week I have 0.03Mbps upload. Blame Verizon.

In brief.

It looks like the Ministry of Truth will not be getting off the ground. https://news.yahoo.com/biden-administration-considers-shutting-down-151257861.html

Elon Musk says he will no longer vote Democrat. "In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party. But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican." That the Democrat party has been the party of division and hate(and intolerance) has been true for a number of years. I'm amazed he said it out loud. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/teslas-musk-says-no-longer-200335296.html

The shorter this is the better my chances of the upload not failing.

Have a great weekend.

Abscess Round Two?

Last week, it looked like a post had been censored by Big Tech. It turned out to be some kind of internet problem. A number of sites weren't loading or weren't loading correctly, including Blogger statistics. Even Facebook was inaccessible.

There's not much to report this week. The two pieces of equipment I ordered for the second Fiverr gig arrived. They didn't connect without a cable. I ordered one. It arrived today. Hopefully, I'll get it set up this weekend for testing. I still need more equipment to get it up and running. The proofreading Fiverr gig isn't up yet either. Life has not been working lately. It looks like the tooth in front of the abscessed tooth is abscessing. I've been feeling it some but not as much as the last one. I've been feeling tired from it, too.

The plan for the next week is to get something done on the writing front and get this equipment tested.

Have a great weekend.

Censored, It Seems

Last week's blog had zero views, which is impossible. It exposed the truth about a political scheme the Democrat party has enacted to officially censor truth in the United States. Blogger is owned by Google, so the censorship of that blog was done by them. Assuming I'm not being paranoid. Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. I've known for a while that I need to abandon Blogger. The need is more urgent. The most obvious flight to safety would be setting up a WordPress blog on my own site.

Speaking of censorship, a while back Twitter did a purge of Christians, one wave of who knows how many. I gave up on them and cancelled my account. Elon Musk is buying Twitter, if the deal goes through, and is promising to restore free speech. The current CEO, a foreigner who doesn't understand American free speech, has made anti-free speech comments in the past. Twitter as a company has a very toxic culture. Will Musk be able to turn it around? Will he replace the anti-free speech CEO with one that loves freedom and democracy? Will democracy-hating employees leave? We'll see. I was tempted to open an account, but I think I'll wait and see what actually happens. Tesla has a long, long, long history of overpromising and underdelivering.

In real life this was a very bad week. The main good news is that I was able to find and buy two pieces of used equipment I need for the second Fiverr gig. I still need more, but I may be able to get that up and running next week, which would be even faster than the proofreading gig that I thought would be running for months before the second gig could get off the ground. However, the problem with Fiverr is that they promote successful veterans over newbies. It can take two months or so to get a first job on Fiverr. If I can get a barebones setup working for the second gig, going outside Fiverr will be my first option. It's possible I might not even do the proofreading gig. I was kind of thinking of that as a way to bootstrap the second gig. We'll see. If I can get up and running and get a sale next week, I'll post more about it.

Have a great weekend.

Ministry of Truth Established

The Department of Homeland security has set up a Ministry of Truth that is going to determine what is and isn't truth based on politics. This is in fulfillment of George Orwell's incredibly prophetic 1984. They're trying to make it sound innocent and limited. Don't be fooled. Once they get a full head of steam, it won't stop or be limited.

The government has no business deciding what truth is. For example, I've seen a number of news articles declaring that Ivermectin does nothing to fight Covid while at the same time we had studies from multiple countries showing that it can cure it. One study out of Israel found it can cure Covid in under 6 days.. Over the past week alone, I saw a TV show in which the host talked about a friend with long Covid who suffered over a year going from doctor to doctor to be told firmly that they had done all they could for him and that nothing more could be done. Out of desperation he went to some kind of independent clinic that gave him Ivermectin and cleared up his long Covid within days. He's fine now. Throughout the Covid pandemic truth changed from day to day. The government put people's lives at risk. Rather than tell the truth, the government knowingly allowed people to die because the truth might have helped the "wrong" political party. The last thing we need is a Ministry of Truth.

The United States Constitution does not grant the federal government the authority to decide what truth is or set up a Ministry of Truth.

Another interesting article, this one about BLM. BLM silent when confronted with data showing massive 2020 spike in Black murders victims. Experts concluded that BLM and de-fund the police were responsible for contributing to the deaths. Woke is putting people to sleep, permanently.

Book stuff.

The Chicago Manual of Style arrived. I want to use it to start a Fiverr gig doing proofreading and light editing. I sometimes play fast and loose with commas in my own work, so I'll be getting up to speed using the B'vellah series to practice with as well as the SF book I wrote last year. I have a second Fiverr gig I want to do, but it requires space and some equipment I don't have. I'm exploring the possibility of building a shed/studio for that and also making videos. I was just starting to make videos a few years ago when I ran into some health concerns. I need to start doing that again. I don't know if I'll be able to do the shed or not. I'll have more info later if things develop.

Have a great weekend.

Still on the Ground

It's hard to tell whether the extracted tooth site is getting better. Sometimes I'm in pain, mostly sinus pain. Sometimes I'm not. Today is a non-sinus pain day. I took an ibuprofen, but it's still bothering me.

Meanwhile, I ordered a Chicago Manual of Style this week. I found it cheaper than Amazon Prime but with slower shipping. It might get here next week. Once it is, I'll be able to move forward with doing a proofreading/editing gig on Fiverr. I'm kind of planning to start with the SF book I wrote last year and then open the Fiverr page, although, since it can take two months to get a first sale, I might go ahead and open the page while getting up to speed on comma rules and such that I play fast and loose with in my own writing. Alternatively, I could start with B'vellah Book 2 since that makes more sense.

It wasn't a great week. I'm weary of the dental problems. I was hoping the extraction would be behind me or at least a minimal irritant, but so much work had to be done on it that it's not. My plan was to recover and hit the ground running. It hasn't worked out that way.

Have a great weekend.

Another Step to Curing Aging

There was an interesting bit of longevity news this week.  Rejuvenation of woman's skin could tackle diseases of ageing. That title is click bait. Scientists Rewind The Clock of Human Skin Cells to Make Them Act 30 Years Younger has more details. Basically, researchers used a chemical bath to turn 53-year-old skin cells into 23-year-old skin cells. They were trying to turn them into stem cells and happened upon the anti-aging effect instead. This is not skin on a person. It's in the lab. Thus, any benefit from this shouldn't happen soon. That's okay. Now that we know this is possible, the hope is that it can be done in a living person and not just for skin but organs like kidneys and livers.

Another article in this field: Mystery of why humans die around 80 may finally be solved Long story short: it's the accumulation of genetic mutations. "The average number of mutations at the end of lifespan across species was around 3200, suggesting there is a critical mass of errors after which a body is unable to function correctly."

I'm closer to getting a proofreading gig up and running. As I was saying last week, I need MS Word, which is $124. This week I ran across this article: Want to Own Microsoft Office Forever With No Annual Fee? Here's How. At the bottom are two links, one for Windows and one for Mac, that lead to MS Office for $49.99. Needless to say, I took advantage of that and now own MS Word for a fraction of what it would cost otherwise. All I need to do at this point is get a proofreading style guide and set up a shop front.

I finally had that abscessed tooth extracted. I feel so much better. I have more energy. I feel less foggy. Even my pronunciation has has improved. It turns out the swelling was so great it was interfering with my speech. The extraction itself was extremely difficult. The tooth broke off with three roots still in my jaw. Those has to be dug out separately. I required stitches. I'm still recovering and, assuming no complications, should be doing okay by next week. Sadly, the procedure cost $80 more than estimated.

Now that I'm not constantly tired and brain foggy, I'm looking forward to getting the last two B'vellah War books out the door. Most of the series is finished. I need to make sure everything is in sync across all three books, and I need to finish the last book and polish and edit it. Since it can take two months to get a first job on Fiverr, which is where I'm setting up the proofreading gig, my plan is to get the series done before that. Assuming that nothing goes wrong.

Have a great weekend.

Preparation and Education

It was a bad week on the abscessed tooth front. The good news is that my next dental appointment is Monday. The plan is to have it extracted. After recovering from that, I should have more energy and better concentration. I've been thinking about the B'vellah War trilogy and whether to make changes to the ending. It seems that one change is all that's needed. If I'm back on my feet soon, I'd like to get the series finished and out the door in a timely fashion. I'm sorry it's taken so long.

I did some more research into starting a proofreading gig on Fiverr, though I haven't created the gig yet. I've also been doing research into a second gig. Why does everything take so much knowledge? I've listened to some YouTube videos by people who are successful on Fiverr and other sites. I have to admit I'm not a fan of jumping in and learning as I go. I don't see that as compatible with providing quality customer service. I'm going to have to learn as I go to a certain extent regardless, but I want to minimize the the bumps and make it as smooth as possible. I'm speaking mostly of the second gig. I've done tons of proofreading for my books, although I did have to go back and fix many, many things in the earlier ones. I should be able to get going with that as soon as I pick a style guide such as or equivalent to The Chicago Manual of Style and buy a copy of MS Word, which is $124. The last non-cash hurdle is to come up with a precise list of my services and study the style guide. I can play fast and loose with grammar rules for my own work, but I need to go by the book for customers.

Needless to say, dental bills are getting in the way of spending, and I was already looking for a side gig. This will be month three of dental work, and I have at least two more months to go. I put it off because of the pandemic. Catching up is beastly.

Because of the dental bills, I still haven't ordered fiber internet yet. I've been having connection problems with Verizon again with my cell phone hot spot, which is what I use for internet. They must be working on the network now that winter is over. I need to dump them as soon as I can and get real internet.

In addition to all this, I need hundreds of dollars of equipment for the second Fiverr gig. I'll have more info on that in the future when it's time to launch.

Have a great weekend.

Fiber News

It's the start of a new month. I've already changed my calendars. I hope you have, too.

There's good news. In previous blogs I've mentioned the broadband utility boxes for fiber that have gone up around me. I was supposed to get mail about it when it was available but never heard anything. This week I was able to stop by the ISP's main office and ask about it. Despite no mail, it's available! I've filled out the paperwork for a 200Mbps connection. That's the good news. The bad news is I haven't submitted it yet because of the cost of the dental work I've been getting and still need. I think I can afford it, but I need to do a deep dive into my spending to make sure. Installation is $175 plus a monthly fee of $64.95.

As noted before, I've been looking for some kind of side gig to make extra cash. I may have found it. While researching something else, I was recommended a video about doing copywriting on Fiverr. I've looked into copywriting before, but yuck, that's advertising. I still have my soul. Nevertheless, I looked at Fiverr to see what was there.

Forget copywriting. I can do proofreading and perhaps some light editing for what looks like starting around $1 per page. Hmm, I think I'm going to try that. The plan is to put together a Fiverr page this weekend. The only drawback is that I would need MS Word, which costs $124. I've been wanting that anyway for my own writing, so it's something I've been needing for a while. But still, that's a lot to invest in something that may not pay off. I also may need a reference manual. A further complication is that it can take 2 months to start getting work on Fiverr. The system is rigged to reward people who are already successful there, and it's crowded. I'd be up against people with degrees, people with decades of experience and professionals in the field.

My next step, besides setting up a page, is to research current proofreading and editing prices and work out what to charge and exactly what services I'd be providing. My concept is Proofeading Plus. For something close to standard proofreading fees, I'd proofread and do minor editing as a free bonus to pull in customers. We'll see.

Have a great weekend.

Creativity Time

A quick followup to last week's blog in which I lamented the ending of American rules baseball by MLB. I found out they're being sued to break their monopoly. I had already been thinking about writing my congressmen to ask them to sponsor a bill to end the monopoly. I wrote the law firm that's doing the lawsuit and gave them an additional argument for doing that. I never heard back, and it's been a few hours short of a week. It's possible the case is already over, and it wasn't in the media that I saw. I need to do more searching.

During the past week, I spent a lot of time on the creative side of writing. In addition to needing to finish the B'Vellah War series, I now have three script ideas for television episodes that I need to do. The good news is that an hour of TV is about 12+ pages of dialogue. That's with minimal extraneous details. Including stage direction and location information would expand it, but for a bare bones script, I'm going for 12 to 14 pages. Once I get to it.

I went to the dentist but didn't get the abscessed tooth pulled. I had another filling done. I have another appointment in a couple of weeks. I've still been tired but not as tired.

It was short this week, but I have to go.

Have a great weekend.

MLB Ends American Rules Baseball

Since taking office in 2015, the new baseball commissioner, Rob Manfred, has made it a mission to change American baseball. At first I thought it was an ego trip to get into the history books as the man who changed baseball, but now that enough changes have been made, the real agenda is much clearer, especially when realizing that he couldn't do anything without owner support.

The last few years have seen changes to the game under the claim that "the games are too long". That never made sense. Fans don't complain about the length of the games. Non-fans do. They don't buy tickets or count as viewers, so who cares what they think? I don't. One change is the removal of the intentional walk. Instead of walking a batter, someone "calls it," and the batter goes to first. Another change is a requirement that pitchers have to face three batters or pitch to the end of the current inning. These rule are supposed to make the games faster. But wait.

This season, 2022, the National League will permanently switch to a designated hitter. The biggest impact that has is to make the games much, much longer. Ah, ha. So, the time-saving changes were implemented in order to introduce the designated hitter into the National League. It turns out MLB was lying the whole time about the length of the games as a reason for making changes.

Here's the problem. Any game with a designated hitter is not baseball. Any game without the intentional walk is not baseball. Any game with a minimum number of batters that has to be faced is not baseball. Tweaking the rules to fix a rule that doesn't work as intended is okay. Changing the game is not permitted. When the game itself is changed, it's no longer baseball.

It gets worse. I believe the next change will be to add a pitch count rule. Every once in a great while, I'll see an international baseball game that has a pitch count rule. It's something like 65 to 85 pitches. It depends on various factors. Pitch count rules are always claimed to be for safety to prevent injuries. In reality, it makes everyone more equal. In other words, it's to appease countries with a Marxist/Socialist/Communist mindset. It reduces the difference between starting pitchers and relievers. An American rules game could have a pitcher go 7, 8 or 9 innings. An international rules game would stop the pitcher at the limit. There would be no more shutouts, perfect games or no hitters. Any of those would have to be done by a combination of pitchers, and that doesn't count. It removes the American value of exceptionalism and makes everyone more equal. The highest ideal is Marxism to make everyone equal. Pitch count rules are based on that mindset. As a side note, social justice is a pillar of Marxism. Its purpose is to make everyone equal.

So, what we have and are moving into are two different types of baseball: American Rules Baseball and International Rules Baseball. Major League Baseball is no longer an American Rules game. It's an International Rules game. Beginning this year, 2022, American Rules Baseball is gone at the professional level and will never be played again at that level.

In order to preserve the national pastime from greedy owners who have shown a complete disrespect for the game and disrespect for the American people and America history and heritage, I propose that Congress remove the monopoly exemption granted to MLB in 1922. The current owners are clearly unworthy to be the caretakers of the national pastime.

I've never watched an American League game because of the designated hitter. This year I will no longer watch National League games either.

Have a great weekend.

Political Propaganda Example

I ran across what looked like an interesting article. It turned out to be radical leftist hate disguised as an article. An expert on civil wars discusses where political extremists are taking this country. It starts out being about civil wars then turns into a rabid attack on the right. If you follow politics at all, you've noticed that the left frequently accuses the right of things they're doing. For example, Democrats were accusing Trump of having dementia at the same time Biden was having trouble putting two sentences together while hiding in his basement. The article is like that. It continues the false claim that the January 6th events were an insurrection, etc.

The author says her father was born in German in 1932 and lived through WWII. She says he was a Republican until he saw Trump. According to her, he grew increasingly agitated at what Trump was doing because it was the same things he saw in Nazi Germany. Uh, no. Who's lying the author or her father? Both? Let's take a look.

Nazi is an acronym for National Socialist Party. Among other things, the Nazis believed in: peace, taxing the rich and giving to the poor, gun control, environmentalism, low tolerance for Christianity and Judaism while embracing paganism, social justice, political correctness, gaining power through targeted violence, etc. Hitler was the most famous social justice warrior of the 20th century. If the author's father wants to draw parallels between an American political party and the Nazis, he needs to look at the Democrats. They believe in everything on that list. They have more in common with the Nazis than they have differences.

In 1933, the Nazis burned down the Reichstag(German parliament building) and instigated Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, during which they attacked opponents. There was political gain in those events, especially burning down the Reichstag. In 2020, the Democrats instigated a Marxist insurrection(George Floyd riots) and rode a wave of violence to election victory. That's assuming the election wasn't stolen. Because Democrats stopped the investigations in their states, we may never really know. During the first three days after George Floyd died, the protests against "police violence" were peaceful. On the third day Antifa showed up, burned down a black housing project and began a reign of terror that lasted months. The violence is still ongoing in some places now in 2022 and makes it into the news, which I find mind boggling.

The article is blaming Republicans for any future civil war. Wow. The Republican party isn't as useless as the Democrat party, but both parties are 19th century political clubs that are no longer relevant in the 21st century. Neither party is good for America. However, the Democrats are following the exact same path the Nazis did in the 1920s and 1930s and for the exact same reasons. Nazi party beliefs didn't line up with the beliefs of the German people. Democrat party beliefs don't line up with American beliefs. The Nazis had to use violence and intimidation because they couldn't make enough headway politically. The Democrats are doing the same thing. Cancel culture? That's the Nazis. Political correctness that fires people for telling the truth? That's the Nazis. Creating an atmosphere in which people are afraid to speak up? That's the Nazis. We're living through the 1920s right now.

When I look around, I see a Democrat party stepping in Nazi footsteps. The Republicans, as near-useless as they are, aren't doing that. Just like the Nazis, the Democrats are attacking their victims and blaming the victims for the attacks.

Have a great weekend.

Do You Mean Kiev?

Every time I see Kyiv or hear someone say Keev, I always think, Is that Kiev? It turns out it is. I checked out some French news articles, and every one uses Kiev. I'm glad that's cleared up. Why the word change? It doesn't makes much sense unless it's for propaganda or deception purposes. That's usually why names change. See Monsanto. The French articles say things I'm not seeing in U.S. coverage. According to them, Putin says he's doing a "denazification" of Ukraine and claims to be fighting "neonazis" there. Interesting things to censor. I have no idea what he's talking about. American coverage seems sparse and shallow.

Something I noticed in one U.S. article is that President Zelensky is part of the Jewish community. That got me to wondering about Bible promises and whether God would protect Ukraine from Russia. It makes the war more watchable. Up until seeing that, I hadn't been able to muster much interest. Now I want to see what happens, especially since it appears Ukraine is completely doomed without a miracle.

Then this story appears, detailing how the stalled Russia invasion may be because they're using cheap, Chinese tires that are crumbling apart after disuse. Really? Because there's a Bible passage for that. Exodus 14 24 And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the LORD looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians, 25 And took off their chariot wheels, that they drove them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the LORD is fighting for them against the Egyptians. So, God took the Egyptian wheels off back then, and now the Russian wheels have come off. Coincidence? I don't know.

In the Christian prophecy community, there's a big hullabaloo over the war because Russia is involved, and there's a line of thinking that believes Russia is in Bible prophecy via the War of Gog and Magog. Even Pat Roberson came out of retirement to make some claims. I'm not holding my breath. I'm more interested in whether the war spreads to other countries. Belarus is supposed to be sending troops in to fight for Russia. Would that lead to other countries sending in troops to help Ukraine? That's what I'm looking at.

Israel has stepped in to try to mediate between Zelensky and Putin. Russia is in Syria. Israel has bombed a number of terrorist targets there, particularly Iranian ones. Not only does Israel have an interest in Zelensky personally, it has an interest in what Russia does in Syria. Instead of Gog and Magog, I'm wondering about Isaiah 17: 1, 14  The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. And behold at evening trouble; and before the morning he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.

If the war spreads and Israel has to take a side, will Damascus be destroyed as that prophecy says? That would be huge. Damascus is the oldest inhabited city in the world. I think that prophecy is more likely than the Gog and Magog one, which modern scholarship believes refers to Turkey and not Russia at all.

Can Russia survive this war and still be a major power? Is this war their last historical attempt to project power before they diminish in history? I'm looking at that, too. This may be the final death throe of the old Soviet Union.

Lots of questions and waiting for the answers.

Have a great weekend.

Looking at Plotting Examples

My shoulder's doing much better this week. It only bothered me a little bit in specific situations. The rest of the time it felt back to normal.

My main reason for wanting to do a middle grade series was to practice plotting novels. Middle grade has a low word count, so I could do a trilogy with roughly the same number of words as a normal novel. It would come out longer but not excessively so. It depends on how many words per story I used, which kind of depends on the market. For the price of a normal novel, I could get three practice "novels" done. It seemed like a more efficient use of time than practicing on full books. The books on the front burner need to come first, though I did have a random idea for the middle grade trilogy that solves a problem I didn't know I had. Like Messengers, it involves travel to another world. I had the idea for how to get the main character there but hadn't put any thought into how he gets back. I had an idea pop up for that this week. I'm thinking something like a maze. I'll have to look it up and see how it's been done before. Surely, the idea can't be original. If it's been done by a best selling book, I'd probably need to do it a different way.

This week I looked at a lot of plotting examples. In theory scenes should do more than one thing. I saw some real world examples of scenes that do that and and even do three things. A good example was a scene in which a fugitive cop called his old partner, but the partner didn't report the call. Later when she presents evidence that shows the fugitive's innocence, it looks like she's covering for him just like she covered up the call. Later when the fugitive tracks down the real killer, it was foreshadowed by the phone call. The phone call scene does three things: 1) Sets up inadmissibility of the exonerating evidence. 2) Foreshadows the confrontation between the fugitive cop and the real killer. 3) Gives a brief sketch of what the fugitive is doing while he's on the run. I suppose a fourth thing would be that it shows the relationship between the fugitive and his former partner.

The ending for the B'vellah War series is already plotted, but it never hurts to take another look at plotting in general. That and I'm still tired from this tooth abscess. It's hard to concentrate and be at my best behind the keyboard at night when I'm dragging through the day. 

Have a great weekend.

What is the Metaverse?

A few weeks ago, I missed a week after helping someone who promised it wouldn't take long. The week before that I mentioned that I had dipped below the price limit on the Forex account and didn't know what the consequences would be. I was up for the week and had done better that week than the two previous weeks combined. Nevertheless, I was dinged for the infraction. I now have to start over with a new trial account.

By now you've heard of the Metaverse and have heard things like Facebook is betting the company on its success. Hopefully, that's true. We could do without Facebook in the world. So, what is the Metaverse? Metaverse is a brand name for Facebook-specific virtual reality. Basically, it's Facebook VR, which makes sense. A while back Facebook bought out a company that sells VR goggles. It's natural for them to create a VR platform to drive goggle sales.

This is great news for the rest of us. VR has been around at least 30 or 40 years or more. It never catches on with the public. The people who love VR are typically video gamers, 3D chatters and university researchers. Almost everyone else couldn't care less. Something like every ten years a company comes along and tries to succeed in the VR space. It makes a splash then goes away. Hopefully, the Metaverse is more of the same.

VR is marketed as exploring online worlds that we can't explore in the real world, etc. There's some truth to that, but the real truth is that we already have a real life equivalent to VR. It's called dress up dollies. When the founder of Facebook gave a presentation showing off his VR avatar, that was his dolly. It was dressed, so he had to dress the dolly up ahead of time. The VR house where his dolly lives was his dolly's dollhouse.

When all the hype is stripped away, the Metaverse is playing dollies and dollhouses. That's why VR never catches on with the general public. People with children know all about dressing up little people and buying clothes for them and providing housing, etc. Why would VR companies expect people like that to pay money to do it all over again online while wearing a mask as large or larger than a diving mask? ha ha ha

Something else to think about is Google and Microsoft's entries into the VR space. Remember Google Glasses? That was Google failing at the metaverse. Remember Microsoft Hololens? There was an article the other day saying that Microsoft may abandon it. If true, that's Microsoft failing at the metaverse. Both of those companies are smarter than Facebook.

If Facebook follows the historical VR pattern, the Metaverse will make a splash then fade away over time. Facebook has seen the handwriting on the wall. The Facebook software isn't worth buying or subscribing to. Younger people fled it years ago. Now. it's mostly older people posting pictures of their grandchildren. At least, that's what I mostly see when I post my weekly blogs. When I'm not rejecting friend invites from scammers, that is. In fewer than twenty years, the Facebook demographic will have aged out of the platform. Facebook has delayed its inevitable death by buying companies that its younger users have fled to, but that can only work so long. At some point those companies will fall out of favor just like Myspace and Facebook. Retaining customers by buying the companies they're fleeing to is not a viable business model. Facebook may really be betting the company on VR.

Is there any way for Metaverse to work? Something Facebook has that historical VR companies haven't is psychological manipulation of users. If you've read articles about Facebook, you already know that they have algorithms that tell them what mood a user is in. They can tell when an individual is depressed or happy, etc., based on things like sentence length, word usage, chat usage(who the individual does or doesn't talk to, etc), typing speed, grammar usage and so forth. Facebook knows it can trigger people's moods by presenting Likes and such. A real world example is that Facebook can tell if someone is depressed and needs a pick-me-up. They can send a specifically-targeted Amazon ad for a product that, based on the person's profile, the person would like and that the purchase thereof would give an emotional boost. Ads like that that take advantage of the user's emotional state have a high success rate, according to published articles. Obviously, an ad like that would cost more for Amazon.

If Facebook can manipulate the addiction response in Metaverse users that way they do with Facebook users, the Metaverse might last longer than VR splashes usually do, but will it succeed in the long term? Let's hope not. Let's hope this is the inevitable death of an extremely toxic company.

Have a great weekend.

A Scent of Desperation

Sometimes, you see news stories that are connected without the reporters mentioning the connection. February 7th saw two stories like that. In the first story, it was announced that Amazon is raising the price of Amazon Prime by $20. The second story was about Amazon raising the base pay cap for corporate executives from $160,000 to $350,000. Ah, so they raised the price of Prime and then gave themselves more than a double pay raise. Yes, I think I see the connection there.

However, there's one more connection to make. The following day saw this story: Silicon Valley is no longer the edgy tech frontier as workers flee Google and Amazon for crypto and Web3 startups, recruiters say. According to the article, some of the "best and brightest of Silicon Valley" are leaving Big Tech in a brain drain on those companies, and it's happening very quickly. Fascinating. Apparently, the move to jack the price on Prime and give executives a massive pay raise is fueled by desperation and fear.

I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing what happens to Big Tech after the brain drain. During my watching of French news videos, I ran across a story saying that the European Union has caught GAFAM red-handed tampering in U.S. elections in order to change the outcomes. This is in defiance of the will of the American people. The EU has declared GAFAM not only a threat to U.S. democracy but also a threat to European democracy. GAFAM is an acronym for Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft. Caught red-handed tampering in U.S. elections and yet that never appears in our news media. Funny, isn't it? It'll be interesting to see if the brain drain hampers future election fraud.

It was another week of recovering from shoulder pain. Last Friday, the pain was almost gone. Somehow, I re-injured it. I think the dental chair had something to do with it. I also think sitting in the chair in the living room instead of at the computer was the main culprit. I wanted to be away from the keyboard to give it time to heal, but I could never get comfortable in that chair. It seems to have really aggravated the injury. However, after staying out of it, the shoulder is doing much better. I could raise my arm today without the same level of pain as on Wednesday, for instance, but it's still not back to normal. This is the shoulder for the arm I broke when I was a kid.

Have a great weekend.

Anti-aging News

I missed last week. I was helping someone who was driving us to a location. The promise I had that I'd get back in time to do the blog fell through. The person wanted to do that to me again this week, but I didn't let it happen. Sometime, it's okay to say no.

The big news this week was that I hurt my shoulder. I think I slept on it the wrong way. It feels a lot better today, though. I'm able to type now without pain. By the way even if you're in your thirties, you can hurt yourself sleeping. I hurt the same shoulder sleeping on my side on a couch one afternoon. Just when it was getting better, I slept on it the wrong way again, and it took about a year to fully heal. So, if you're in your thirties or older and are thinking about sleeping, please, be careful.

Occasionally, I'll post something about longevity research. Here's an article about Jeff Bezos wanting to "stop aging" in humans. Another article said he wants to make us immortal, a blatant click bait lie. A better article is this one in the Financial Times. Altos Labs has raised $3billion to cure diseases and increase human healthspan, which presumably would increase lifespan. Bezos is one of the investors. I've been saying for a while now that a billionaire needs to put money into curing aging rather than some of the incredibly frivolous things billionaires squander money on. What's the point of having that much money if you're going going to die in a few years? The world doesn't need the metaverse. It needs longevity and a cure for all diseases.

The challenge now is to live long enough to see all this come to pass. Here's an article from November about a true anti-aging treatment. It's another version of the story I posted a while back about people going into a hyperbaric chamber 90 minutes a day 5 days a week for 3 months. It lengthens telomeres. If I could afford it, I'd already have done it.

I'm still suffering from my abscessed tooth. My dental appointment is Monday. We'll see how that goes.

Have a great weekend.

Over the Edge?

It was another week of struggling with the abscessed tooth. It's doing better, although I'm almost out of antibiotics. I feel better than I have in a while. My next appointment is Feb 7, which seems like a long way off.

I may have hit a snag on the trial account. I'm up for the week. It was a better week than the past two weeks. However, I dipped a few dollars($7, I think) below a money level that is supposed to end the trial with a fail, regardless of whether the trade works. Howeverer, I haven't received an email about it, and the trade ended in profit. I'm not sure what's going to happen, but it looks good so far. If they waive the slight infraction, I'm feeling cautiously optimistic that I'm almost past the point where that won't be happening again. The worst case scenario is that I'd have to start over. I'd be okay with that. I've been considering it anyway. In the meantime I'm hanging in there, trying to reach the target goal.

On the writing front, if I still feel better this coming week, I'm planning to get something positive done. I almost did this week, but the night I wanted to I didn't have enough time for the long session of going through the SF book that's been resting that I needed. I need to do a complete read through of it in one go if I can. Or I may just work on the next B'vellah War book.

Have a great weekend.

Abscess

There's not much of note this week. I went to the dentist where I found out I had an abscess. I'm on antibiotics but still tired. It's affecting my system. The tooth will probably have to be pulled. I'm not a fan of that, but it would never bother me again.

I usually watch television at dinner. Roku recommended a show to me I remember watching when I was little. I wish I could tell you what year the first season aired. It's about five years earlier than it seems like it should be. How do I remember a show from that far back? Seeing the date kind of made me feel old. I wish I could tell you what it was, but then you would think I was old. You don't need to think that.

I made some very slight progress on the Forex front, though I'm still far from my price target. The market seems to be behaving itself better than in December. I may end up having to start over with a new trial basis. Hopefully, this next week will be a breakthrough week, and I'll feel better.

Have a great weekend.

Pro-Democracy Demonstrators?

I took a break toward the end of December. This week has been trying to get back into the swing of things. There's still no movement on the broadband front. There was minimal movement on the Forex front, although I ran across a video that explains that most professionals don't trade in December and that even the first part of January is dangerous territory. It didn't specify what is considered the "first" part of January. I was up for the week, but I'm nowhere near the price goal.

On the writing front, I had an idea the other day for the middle grade trilogy. Without giving away spoilers, it solved a problem I've had since the beginning. It was a major step in the process. Of course, that project has to come behind Messengers stuff. Still, it's good to have it figured out. The next step would be to put all the ideas together, including the new one, and brainstorm the remaining details into a coherent whole.

I had a bad sinus infection and a bad tooth on top of it. I've been so tired and not getting enough sleep. My dental appointment is Monday. I should feel better after that.

Remember the January 6th event from last year? If it had happened in a foreign country, the media would have called it a pro-democracy protest or a pro-democracy demonstration. It's amazing how the tune changes with politics. A good rule of thumb: rednecks taking selfies in the Capitol is not a riot much less an insurrection. It's rednecks taking selfies, and that's all. Marxist revolutionaries burning down cities and taking over parts of cities to declare independence from the U.S. is rioting and insurrection. See: dictionary.

Have a great weekend.