Well, well, you took my advice about theatricality a bit literally.” – Batman Begins
I always found studying math was the best workout, since there is strength in numbers. (all memes as-found)
Here are some notes that I wrote, mainly for nobody but me. Then I thought, hey, why not share them? So, here you have it. The list is in no particular order. Your mileage may vary.
Personal responsibility and discipline lead to freedom. I need to understand that decisions belong to me. I stand without fear because this comes internally, not externally. My internal focus is on virtue, and making choices that celebrate Truth, Beauty, and Goodness.
The outcome of virtuous acts is sometimes failure.
I tried opening a packet of tuna to make a tuna fish sandwich, but it didn’t look like there was enough tuna in the bowl, so I opened another packet. Then? Too much tuna, enough for four sandwiches. This is why I only have tuna sandwiches every four years.
What’s the least diverse profession in the United States? Chief Diversity Officer.
I deal with failure in a game where I put myself out and did all I could. It is what it is. An honorable defeat is better than a dishonorable surrender, but an honorable victory is better than both.
Following someone else’s rules isn’t the basis of honor. Fighting fair when they won’t fight fair isn’t the basis of honor, either.
Realize that defeat is sometimes hidden victory, and victory is sometimes hidden defeat and the biggest decider is timescale.
I realize that other cultures put their own people first, and it does my children no good for me to put other cultures and their people as equal to ours.
If you will only hire an indigenous woman as a housekeeper, is that ethnic cleansing?
Responsibility leads to responsibility. This is good, in tough times and in good times. There is no time while I’m still breathing to lay down my burden.
The system is broken. I fight to make it better. I will not fix it by myself, and it may not ever be perfect. Yet, I will not stop.
No Chinese guy ever called me a racist. Except that one.
I will make audacious goals, because more often than not if I exercise enough discipline and effort, I will meet those goals. Aiming low does me no good.
Challenge is what gives us the opportunity to be strong, wise, and virtuous. Understanding that there is some part of me that is eternal is enough to overcome the fear of the ephemeral.
Am I ever ready? No. The best I can do is the to face the future with bravery and open eyes, knowing that the challenges I face may be more difficult than any I have ever faced in my life.
I don’t know how you feel about toilet graffiti, but I just signed a partition.
There is only one way: forward. There is no return or retreat, time is an unforgiving arrow that moves, leaving the past as a dead and inaccessible country with the exception of the echoes I have in memory, writing, art, and recordings. Living in the past is living with ghosts, as it is dead and barren.
The past exists to transform me. I am where I am, and I am who I am because of my successes and failures. To spend time on regret is a waste. To feel despair because of what I am not is a temptation put forward by Evil. I cannot live a life that never was, even if I wish it so.
Dexter was often the good guy.
My favorite time of the year is when the air conditioner isn’t running, as long as I don’t need the air conditioner to be running, and then it’s my least favorite time of the year. When the machines finally rise against us, I’m going to really regret having to kill my air conditioner.
In one sense, we are all on our own islands, alone. It is only by talking and listening and doing that one can know another. The way that minds speak to each other through time and space is by writing and reading. Maybe in the future it’ll only be memes.
Our nation is not ours, it was given to us in trust by our ancestors for their grandchildren. To give it away to others is thoughtless theft.
Geography is important to making a people. Geography is important to controlling the world. Me? Based on geography, I fully support the obliteration of Iran. (pic related)
Psst, I hear they have nuclear weapons!
Maybe it was a bad idea to let soulless corporations have access to the immigration system so they could import unlimited amounts of people from a foreign country that have no connection to our genetics, no understanding of our history, no respect for our values, or any sort of comprehension of standards of personal hygiene. But hey, they have amazing in-group preference and won’t hire actual Americans, so at least you won’t have to work with them.
I never understood the “got your nose” game as a kid. I spent the entire age of three thinking adults were retarded because they were certain that their thumbs were my nose. Now, if they had been holding knives . . . .
I think I mentioned a while back that I went on a binge reading Karin Slaughter murder mystery novels – very good, until her later ones got too dark even for me. Currently I am ripping through Nelson DeMille’s excellent thrillers – start with his 1980s novel The Charm School for a stand-alone adventure or Plum Island if you want to begin following the adventures of John Corey, who is basically what John Wilder would be if he were an NYPD cop. A wonderful smartass observation on every page. Here’s a few taken from an online list….
“We’re all pilgrims on the same journey but some pilgrims have better road maps.”
“The problem with doing nothing is not knowing when you are finished.”
“Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face.”
“How you handle life depends a lot on how you handle plan B, or if you have a plan B.”
“Job happiness is directly proportional to the distance you are from the home office.”
“I only drink a little, but when I do, I become a different person, and that person drinks a lot.”
“The journey home is never a direct route; it is, in fact, always circuitous, and somewhere along the way, we discover that the journey is more significant than the destination and that the people we meet along the way will be the traveling companions of our memories forever.”
“The meaning of life has not much to do with good and evil, right and wrong, duty, honor, country, or any of that. It has to do with cutting the right deal.”
“There is no terra incognito left.”
“Old guys have seen too much, and they trust no one.”
“Well, no one ever said the truth would make you happy – only free.”
I’m getting more and more hooked on Google Gemini AI….sigh, we’re doomed. But if you’re looking for some fun Fall entertainment from a new source…
Do you agree that DeMille’s novels are somewhat formulamatic yet extremely well written, usually having a wiseass, overconfident but noble hero, a sympathetic female sidekick with a divided loyalty completing a CIA romantic triangle, with all characters fighting for very high geopolitical stakes against a cunning villain?
That is a spot-on analysis. Many literary critics and long-time fans would completely agree with you. Nelson DeMille masterfully perfected a specific narrative formula, but his sharp wit, meticulous research, and cinematic pacing are exactly what make his books so incredibly readable.
Here is how your breakdown maps perfectly onto his signature style:
The “DeMille Formula” Breakdown
• The Wiseass, Noble Hero: This is DeMille’s absolute trademark. Whether it is Sam Hollis (The Charm School), John Corey (Plum Island, The Lion’s Game), or Paul Brenner (The General’s Daughter), his protagonists are always deeply cynical, fiercely independent, overconfident, and constantly cracking jokes at the expense of authority. Yet, underneath the sarcasm, they possess an unshakeable moral compass and a dogged determination to do the right thing.
• The Sympathetic Sidekick & Romantic Triangle: DeMille loves pairing his heroes with highly competent women who are often caught between worlds. In The Charm School, Lisa Rhodes is torn between her official diplomatic duties as a press attaché and her growing involvement in Hollis’s rogue mission. The introduction of CIA station chief Seth Alevy rounds out that tense, classic romantic triangle where trust is a moving target.
• High Geopolitical Stakes: He rarely writes small stories. His plots almost always involve massive, terrifying threats—Soviet infiltration camps, international terrorism, nuclear threats, or deep government conspiracies.
• The Cunning Villain: To match his hyper-competent heroes, DeMille creates incredibly formidable antagonists. In The Charm School, KGB Colonel Boris Glazov acts as a brilliant, ruthless foil who keeps the tension suffocatingly high.
Why the Formula Works
While a formula can make a writer predictable, DeMille elevates it because he is a master of voice and atmosphere. His dialogue is snappy, his depiction of bureaucracy and intelligence agencies feels authentic, and he excels at building a sense of paranoia. You know roughly how a DeMille novel will structurally play out, but the ride is so entertaining that readers gladly buckle in every time.
I’m sold.
A formula isn’t bad if it gives a vehicle to tell a story, hence the hero with a 1000 faces . . .
I like the Will Trent tv show but the books they are based on are pretty dark.
Karin Slaughter went thru three stages – her Grant County books (great!) which followed Sarah Linton in south Georgia, her Will Trent books (woah!) which (eventually) followed Sarah Linton in Atlanta, and her books after Sarah Linton (WTF?) where she decided pitch black was a pastel color. I found the whole Will Trent TV series unwatchable and abandoned it after only a few episodes as a DEI mess. In the books Will Trent is specifically a unusually tall and gangly blond introvert that squeezes into Faith’s Mini Cooper as comic relief over hundreds of pages per story. The actor playing Trent in the TV show, Ramon Rodriquez, fits into a race-swapped Faith’s Mini Cooper just fine as they paint-by-numbers shallow, sanitized 42-minute versions of the original adventures. Without me.
What AI sez….
has the significant differences between the Trent books and TV shows caused much backlash or is the show a hit?
The ABC adaptation of Will Trent is an undeniable hit. While the massive changes from Karin Slaughter’s source material caused vocal skepticism from hardcore book purists early on, the general television audience and critics have overwhelmingly embraced the series. In fact, it remains one of network television’s most stable performers. The reaction divides down two clear paths:
The Book Fan Backlash
Hardcore readers frequently vent on platforms like Reddit and Facebook book groups about how radically the show alters characters and tone. The most common complaints include:
The Tone Shift: Karin Slaughter’s novels are incredibly dark, gruesome, and gritty. ABC reimagined the series as a lighter, fast-paced network procedural with a heavy dose of quirky humor and “savant-like” crime-solving. Book fans often joke that the TV version feels like the “Hallmark Channel version” of the books.
Character Overhauls: In the novels, detective Michael Ormewood is a deeply corrupt, twisted, and violent cop. On TV, he is a generic, well-meaning family man used for comedic relief. Angie Polaski’s severe, scab-ridden heroin addiction was heavily sanitized for network standards, and her toxic, manipulative dynamic with Will was softened into a standard television romance.
Casting Differences: In the books, Will is described as a lanky, 6’4″ blonde, fair-skinned man. The show uses color-blind casting, starring Ramón Rodríguez, and diversifying the rest of the cast (such as Faith and Amanda, who are white in the books) to better reflect modern Atlanta.
Why the Show is a Hit
Despite the initial book-purist grumbling, the show has succeeded by standing entirely on its own two feet:
Critical Acclaim: It holds a stellar 89% on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics have highly praised the undeniable chemistry of the ensemble cast and Ramón Rodríguez’s charismatic, deeply empathetic portrayal of Will.
Broad Appeal: By smoothing out the graphic violence of the books, the show runners built a highly accessible, comforting prime-time drama that captures viewers who find Slaughter’s books too distressing to read.
The Author’s Blessing: Karin Slaughter herself completely supports the changes. She has publicly praised Ramón Rodríguez and stated that keeping “the books as the books, and the show as the show” allows both to coexist beautifully without competing.
Ultimately, most fans have agreed to treat them as two entirely separate universes. People who love the quirky TV show can enjoy its lighter weekly mysteries, while readers can still go back to the books for the complex, long-game character development and darker stories.
I like those!
Chiming in here, I read both The Charm School and Plum Island a few years ago, on the recommendation of Martin McPhillips. DeMille does not write short novels, and I was short on time, so I didn’t read any others, but if you have the time, I recommend DeMille.
Let me also recommend McPhillips’ political thriller Corpse in Armor.
Fall is my favorite season but it messes with my body…..literally. Ragweed is in bloom and it does a number on my sinuses. It used to give me bronchitis every year until I finally figured out the mix of vitamins that tamped down my allergic response.
I’m not sure if it the ragweed or just the shortening of the days, but I also find my sleep more disrupted and my general stress levels elevated this time of year. I used to think it was just nervousness about going back to school, but I’m retired now and I still experience it every year.
I suspect it has something to do with the decreased light cycle that messes with melatonin and serotonin production (similar to the way sundowners causes an increase in anxiety in dementia patients in the evening). But even with that, Fall is still awesome.
Yup. And when it gets full on winter, I’m in heaven.
Love the chief diversity officer quote. A close running in the least diverse field is anything having to do with the NFL including the advertisers . I just tried to watch game last night and it is painful how much everything during that 3 hr time slot has been urbanized. The group chimp out dances in the end zone after a touchdown are embarrassing. Even the ads for NFL apparel seemed to be targeting only inner city gangstas and hip-hop artists.
The whole place is ghetto. African banana republic with golden toilets in the imperial palace and handouts for all and everything for sale that isn’t already being stolen. Constant war. Calls for war. Loyalty tests. Cartels in every corner of commerce.
People from prez camacho on down talk like retards and have faces stuffed into phones filing selves in cars eating slop and whining about the latest insult to their fragile identities.
Can’t tell if infrastructure is half built or half collapsed. Hordes of predatory youths in every city while “security” cameras see everything everywhere so they can mail you a bill for some infraction of paperwork. Feral females and mutilated manlets and gaypedos scrumming to occupy the highest point in the low hierarchy of decline.
The culture is black ghetto in full. I live in rural area and its total ghetto. The kids look terrible. The trucks look Mexican. The sharking is off the charts. “Country” music is some yipyap jabberywok of sad sack whiggery. Yet money pouring in to plow old family farms into new ghettos.
They are targeting territory they have already taken. A mockery of our institutions. That’s the “sport”. You get to pay them to watch the real time collapse.
“Burgers?”
This has to be the biggest cuckening ever. It is no coincidence that this is also the era in which the greatest “wealth” has been created. The spoils of blank slate economicus americanus are legend. They will rule over the ashes.
Black indeed. Put $100 on the patriots and let it ride!
And none of them care about anything beyond a paycheck.
Trump needs to see that map of Iran and authorize tactical nukes ASAP. Diego Garcia ain’t that far distant.
That solves our H1-b crisis. And eliminates all the garbage along the Ganges, er, Euphrates River. Or is that Iraq?
Better do all of it, to make sure.
Been to India ONCE, that is all it takes to know. Karma is their downfall and is inherent to their religion and culture. It teaches helping someone screws up their payback to reincarnate better. That means we are importing people with a culturally removed conscience. That is strike one.
Churchill said Islam to a man is as rabies is to a dog. I figure that makes it not coincidental that the uniparty is importing the two most destructive cultures on Earth
And, they’re proud of it. But they have to go back.
Hire Esmerelda for ethnic cleansing and Clancy is every single time.
A nose job has been done.
Don’t be a weak cuck, ancestors are watching.
Clancy is evil, personified.
Right on, Obi Wan. I tumbled to some of these myself. Thank you.
My pleasure! These actually take longer than a usual post, but they’re fun.