Anywho, Happy New Years, and here’s hoping 2025 is great!

So with the news from Canada that the Trudeau government will accelerate freezing the personal and business accounts of truckers protesting mandates (https://fee.org/articles/did-justin-trudeau-s-financial-crackdown-really-spark-a-bank-run-in-canada/), it occurred to me that some people may need to think about something. This could absolutely happen here in the U.S. This isn’t a “oh, it’s happening in another country, it could never happen here” thing.

So, the problem with the way most people think about banks is wrong…or at least, incomplete. This is an over-simplification, but when you deposit your money in a bank, you have now lost custody of that money. Those numbers you see on your mobile banking app is how much money the bank is holding in your name. But you do not have physical custody of ANY of that money. The government (or indeed the bank itself) can freeze or remove that money at any time, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Yes, you might be able to get that money returned, but it’ll be a court battle to get it back. A possibly expensive court battle you have to wage with your money seized and inaccessible. A quick web search will return stories of accounts frozen and seized with little or no evidence of any wrongdoing, which takes weeks, months, or even years of expensive lawyers to resolve.

Now, I’m not saying this to scare people. But I do want people to acknowledge that giving your money for some other entity to hold on your behalf removes it from your immediate control. I’m not saying go and pull your money out of the bank. That would be counter-productive, and very inconvenient. Maybe a layered approach? Have some cash on hand, crypto holdings, and such? I don’t know, I’m not a financial professional, and this is not financial advice.

That’s one reason the government via the SEC, Fed, etc. are trying so hard to eliminate most cryptocurrencies, especially privacy-centered cryptocurrencies. They can’t be controlled, deleted, or frozen, and in the case of privacy coins, it’s very difficult to even track or trace. With some of the crazy things going on nowadays, it would be wise to be cautious.

Lot of stress going on right now. John is graduating high school in a week, and there are a lot of recitals and concerts to attend. With work and all this personal stuff going on, stress levels are through the roof! But we just have to remember that yes, this too shall pass.

Stay strong, everyone!

Fast forward a decade and a half.  I’m in Office Depot, and see a Yafa fountain pen.  I say to myself, “Well, it’s about $13, but that’s cheap for a fountain pen.”  It is, indeed, very inexpensive, but here’s the problem with impulse purchases…you have no idea what you’re buying until you get it home.  I take it out, and it feels really good in the hand.  It’s larger round, pretty hefty, and looks good.  But the pen simply doesn’t write well.  It takes forever for ink to get from the cartridge to the nib (the tip of the pen), and when it the ink finally does get there, it skips, and has trouble starting. I put the pen in my pencil cup, and basically ignored it.

So a couple weeks ago, I was looking through my pencil cup looking for a working pen, and found the Sheaffer and Yafa pens.  So I readied my Google-Fu, and came across John Morgan’s oPENions site.  He has a very good beginner’s guide, and a several good reviews on inexpensive yet good writing pens.  Using those reviews, I made additional Google Searches, and hit several forums on those pens and others, eventually coming across mention of the Jinhao pens.  Inexpensive Chinese-made pens that write fairly well, and are only about $10.  So I went to ISellPens.com, and found everything I needed.  I bought a Jinhao medium nib pen, which came with a converter for bottle ink, a bottle of black Noodler’s Ink, and a Sheaffer converter (I wanted to try to convert that old school pen to bottle ink).  I had the stuff in about four days, and immediately cleaned out the pen for its first inking.

So far, I’ve been very happy with the Jinhao.  It’s heavy, and has a large diameter, so it feels very significant in your hand.  It writes fairly well, with very little skipping, and starts right away, even after a weekend of non-use.  Unfortunately, the Sheaffer converter didn’t work, as the school pen I have is only for cartridges.  Still, it can be used for something else.  I’m finding that fountain pens are wonderful to make you really WANT to write better.  To concentrate not only on what you write, but HOW you write it.  Next time I get a few dollars, I’m going to get one of those Lamy Safari pens, and maybe some blue ink.  It’s a hobby that can be really expensive, but not necessarily so.  And like flashlights and radios, it can be endlessly interesting.

…I still don’t use the Yafa.  Bad writing is just bad writing.

…naturally they did.  http://normaluncertainty.blogspot.com/2009/03/sy-why.html.  Oh well, guess what, it’s STILL a good title!  Claire pretty much makes every point I have about the switch from “SciFi”, to “SyFy”.  Still, it bears repeating.  Here, let me do it right…

YOU ARE THE SCI-FI CHANNEL!  SYFY MAKES NO DANG SENSE!  AND YOUR PROGRAM DIRECTOR SHOULD BE SHOT WITH BB’S UNTIL HE/SHE FIGURES OUT WHAT THE WORDS “GOOD PROGRAMMING” MEANS!

I mean, geez, let’s look at what’s been on in the past couple of months.  Mostly hack-and-slash horror flicks.  I mean, I like a good horror movie as much as the next guy, but “Saw” isn’t even Science Fiction, just Fiction!  At least get the genre right!  I guess they want to get away from all that SciFi crap.  It’s cramping their style.  They want to grow as artists, I suppose.  Maybe do poetry at the local coffee house.  Get a cappuccino and do some beatnik, bohemian crap.

Get this through your thick heads…SciFi MADE you the powerhouse you are today!  You don’t go alienating your core demographic and turn your back on what has made you strong in the business, just because you want to play “The Sound of Music” on Friday nights!  You start a spin-off company for that!

There have been some dim spots of goodness.  SG-U is a surprisingly good show, and the movie Wolvesbayne didn’t suck.  But most of those original shows and movies aren’t even “B” movies.  Maybe “D” movies…if you’re lucky.  I’m not sure SyFy execs would recognize a good script if it rolled itself up and played “The Stars and Stripes Forever” on a banjo.  The few glimmers of near-brilliance are immediately replaced with mediocre, or downright horrible programs.

And why am I seeing so many of these horror movies on there, anyway?  What happened to the “Science” in Sci-Fi?  “Saw” was just one of many.  Now, I know they’re doing this “31 days of Halloween” (a blatant ripoff of Fox Family’s old 13 days of Halloween–ABC should sue), but I’ve been seeing nearly nothing but horror on there for several months.  Seems “SyFy” execs think that “SyFy” means “horror blood/guts fest”.  Nearly 50 years of classic SciFi to air, and they give us “Children of the Corn 23:  They’re Back Again and Again”.  Do they give us “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, or campy  cult classics like “Battle Beyond the Stars”?  No, they give us drivel such as “Basilisk”, and “DinoCroc”.   Ugh.  Do I even see “Lord of the Rings”?  Nope, not here.  Gotta watch that on TNT.  You get to see “Manticore”.

“Why do you keep watching?”, you may ask.  Well, it’s kinda like watching an auto accident.  It’s horrible, but you can’t quite look away.  It’s fascinating in some sick fashion.

So I guess I’ll keep watching the death of a good channel.  Unable to look away.

Thing is, I don’t stay with one genre.  I’ll go from high fantasy, to horror, to military sci-fi.  Currently, I’m on an Urban Fantasy kick.  Urban Fantasy, if you’re not aware, is a fairly recent genre that puts supernatural, magical, or mythical characters, powers, or situations into modern (not necessarily “urban”) settings.  A good example are the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher.  Wizard in Chicago?

I’ve recently started reading several new (to me) authors.  Among them Kim Harrison, author of the “The Hollows” series.  I’ve also started reading Rachel Caine, author of the “Weather Wardens” and the new “Outcast” series.  Also Patricia Briggs, Devon Monk, and Stephenie Meyer.  Now, all of these authors have something in common that I’m curious about.  No, it’s not that they’re all women.  I have many authors of both the male and female persuasion that I love.  It’s close to that, though.  All of these authors have their main protagonist as women.  Usually strong, kick-ass women.  All of these series are worth reading.  They’re all well written stories, with excellent character development.  Looking on the bookshelves right now is almost like going to a Buffy the Vampire Slayer convention.

I’m just a little curious why the genre seems to be skewing that way.  Just a kind of offhand observation.  I really am into the “Alpha and Omega” series by Patricia Briggs, and I’m going to get her “Mercy Thompson” series as well, since the two are set in the same world.  Also, the new “Outcast” series by Rachel Caine is turning out to be pretty interesting.  I haven’t even finished the first book yet, and I’m already feeling good about the series.  Very emotionally charged so far.

Ok, I suppose I didn’t really have a point to this post, except for this:  Don’t read the Gormenghast trilogy unless you WANT to gouge your eyes out with a grimy spoon.

I swear, there actually IS an Automotive Harassment Task Force, who’s only job is to drive YOU crazy on the highway. I mean, what POSSIBLE reason could someone have to cut right in front of your bumper, slow down to ZERO mph, then turn off into a side street, when you have TWO BLOCKS of empty street behind you? Or sit completely through a green light, only to take off while it’s yellow, leaving you at a red light? The only rational reason I can think of is that they’re out to get me. That’s right, every driver out there…INCLUDING YOU…is out to stop me from getting to my destination.

Well, watch out, world! Cause I found an application to the AHTF. As soon as I’m admitted, it’ll be ME harassing YOU!

Unfortunately, they’ll all be thirteen.  Still, I was there first, so they can kiss my a…uhh, they can put up with me.