Month: October 2021

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You Are Given Two Choices

This is great, although imperfect because of the breakthrough cases, but take it for what it is.

I've had a few interactions recently with people who refuse to get the Covid vaccine. One of their arguments is the 99% survival rate. I came up with this analogy.

You are given two choices. The first choice is to go into a room with 99 other people and draw a marble from a box.

60 people draw a blue marble. A large man then smacks them on the side of the head with a cupped first and says they can leave. It hurts, but it wears off quickly.

30 draw a red marble. They get worked over a bit more—black eye, bloody nose, split lip. But they walk out under their own steam and heal within a week.

9 draw a yellow marble. They get the shit stomped out of them. They do not walk out under their own power. Their injuries take months to heal, and some will never be back to normal.

1 draws a green marble. He's killed—slowly, clumsily. If he's lucky, he passes out before the shades permanently go down.

The 2nd choice? Don't go into the room at all.

Why would anyone pick the first option?

~John Mathews

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I Am Reminded Of This…

At a distance of nine light years, Sirius is one of the brightest well-known stars visible in the northern hemisphere that is close enough that its distance is something we can easily wrap our heads around in terms of a human lifetime.

Every winter with the appearance of the star on the eastern horizon, I think back to what I was doing nine years ago when the light I'm seeing now first departed Sirius on its journey outward.

This year that would be 2012. Ben and I had been in Denver a little over a year.

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Blast From The Past

I stumbled across this gentleman today over at Sicko Ricko's.  It brought back memories. This guy was my "go-to" source of inspiration for years when I needed to rub one out. I believe it was from some kind of print media; a Playgirl compilation, as I recall. I was disappointed in that it seemed this was the only picture of the guy they'd ever printed. (All that body hair probably scared everyone off.)

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Quote of the Day

As we head into yet another work week from hell, remember…

You'll never be criticized by someone doing more than you. You'll always be criticized by someone doing less.  Remember that." ~ Denzel Washington

(I'm looking at you, Little Miss Micromanager)

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I Love The German Language

After three years of high school German, I was fluent enough by the time I started college that I probably could've gone to Germany and had little difficulty navigating social interactions, but the old adage, "Use it or lose it," is very apropos when discussing learning (and retaining) any foreign language. To my credit, I've tried over the years to get back into it, but with mixed results. When I run across a phrase (like the one above) that I struggle with ("knallen" had been long forgotten), all I can say is thank the gods for Google Translate. (It's not perfect, I know, but it does help someone like me who has just enough knowledge to end up saying something really stupid if I relied solely on memory.)

When I worked at the hospital many years ago I had quite a few enjoyable (if somewhat broken) discussions with a nurse who was a native speaker. She encouraged me at every turn to improve my grammar and vocabulary, even going so far as to supply me with German print magazines. Sadly, she quit before I ever got back to a comfortable conversant level, and thereafter it all fell by the wayside.