Howdy High, There, Buckaroos! Retired Educator, here.
Since the 2009 Thanksgiving Wordle Challenge was such a Total Yawn, despite my best efforts at prostitution through Tweeter, I am posting the solutions below. Actually, I am doing this because of an inability to get any real writing done. Last night, I labored over a long post on ketamine, about which I was quite proud, and it went *poof*. Out, gone, aloft in the blogosphere, more of my amorphous nonsense.
I am one of those people who rolls eyes when folks lament, long and loud, how the computer "lost" or "ate" their work. They usually further insist that they *did* save it, really!
Since the 2009 Thanksgiving Wordle Challenge was such a Total Yawn, despite my best efforts at prostitution through Tweeter, I am posting the solutions below. Actually, I am doing this because of an inability to get any real writing done. Last night, I labored over a long post on ketamine, about which I was quite proud, and it went *poof*. Out, gone, aloft in the blogosphere, more of my amorphous nonsense.
I am one of those people who rolls eyes when folks lament, long and loud, how the computer "lost" or "ate" their work. They usually further insist that they *did* save it, really!
"That there computer has a mind of its own..." Right, Grandpa.
No, computers only do what we "tell" them to do.
Or so I thought.
No, computers only do what we "tell" them to do.
Or so I thought.
That ketamine coma post was really good. It had none of my normal foolishness. It toed a line now obscured by a strong and unexpected imaginary sand storm that quickly reduced visibilty to nil. You know how hard sand can be on high-end electronics.
I dotted every "i" and researched every outrageous claim, underlining what I knew to be the truth at the expense of facts that I chose simply to ignore. It rivaled the work I produced while perched on top of the rooster weathervane that, itself, was planted atop the highest point of the Ivory Tower. Now, *that* was a breathtaking act of unbalanced derring-do!
In fact, when brought nearly to fruition (around 8 pm, 7 December), the ketamine coma piece could not help but bring to mind my unparralleled study of Parisian graffiti produced in the various revolutionary spaces of May 1968.
Ever since stabbing Fred with that sharp, rusty fork yesterday evening for suggesting, perkily, that I "just" get right back to work and reproduce what the 'puter clearly deliberately disposed of... Ever since then, Fred has been wimpering and tossing out the odd and clearly unrehearsed "baaaad computer, baaaaad" in between moans and the mounting double threats of sepsis and lockjaw.
It's good to see him make an effort.
So I guess we will scrape up the money to have some Urgent Care version of a longstanding family doctor [whom our people always repay in quart jars of homemade strawberry preserves and 5 or so fresh eggs] lance what is festering on and around The Fredster.
I heard -- down on the corner -- that if we offer the Urgent Care Admissions Clerk a fresh potted-meat sandwich, we can get a complimentary vasectomy. I say "we," but I really mean "Fred."
Anyway, I appreciate your faithfulness and truly do apologize for the bizarreries of late. I realize that when one's life begins to be nothing but a stringing together of missteps and the totally unforeseen, it's perhaps time to re-evaluate things.
These deep thoughts, and others, I toss into the frigid cold of this December night, and laugh.
So here's the skinny on the Wordles:
#9: "At the little town of Vevay, in Switzerland, there is a particularly comfortable hotel." These are the opening lines to Henry James' Daisy Miller.
#10: The inimitable Gabriel García Márquez and his lovely One Hundred Years of Solitude: "Amaranta Úrsula returned with the angels of December, driven on a sailor's breeze, leading her husband by a silk rope tied around his neck."
Ever since stabbing Fred with that sharp, rusty fork yesterday evening for suggesting, perkily, that I "just" get right back to work and reproduce what the 'puter clearly deliberately disposed of... Ever since then, Fred has been wimpering and tossing out the odd and clearly unrehearsed "baaaad computer, baaaaad" in between moans and the mounting double threats of sepsis and lockjaw.
It's good to see him make an effort.
So I guess we will scrape up the money to have some Urgent Care version of a longstanding family doctor [whom our people always repay in quart jars of homemade strawberry preserves and 5 or so fresh eggs] lance what is festering on and around The Fredster.
I heard -- down on the corner -- that if we offer the Urgent Care Admissions Clerk a fresh potted-meat sandwich, we can get a complimentary vasectomy. I say "we," but I really mean "Fred."
Anyway, I appreciate your faithfulness and truly do apologize for the bizarreries of late. I realize that when one's life begins to be nothing but a stringing together of missteps and the totally unforeseen, it's perhaps time to re-evaluate things.
These deep thoughts, and others, I toss into the frigid cold of this December night, and laugh.
So here's the skinny on the Wordles:
#9: "At the little town of Vevay, in Switzerland, there is a particularly comfortable hotel." These are the opening lines to Henry James' Daisy Miller.
#10: The inimitable Gabriel García Márquez and his lovely One Hundred Years of Solitude: "Amaranta Úrsula returned with the angels of December, driven on a sailor's breeze, leading her husband by a silk rope tied around his neck."
#11: "One day, perhaps, the world may taste the pickles of history." From Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children.
#12: "Contrary to expectation, there was a touch of gaiety in the air, with total strangers willing to engage in conversation on any topic, though uppermost in everyone's mind were the scarcity of fuel and the increasingly frequent power cuts." Okay, so this one? You either knew it or you did not. I truly think the first 3 were possible to tease and reason out... Though the fact that Madame Fresca could not is perhaps ample evidence to the contrary. #12 was taken from the first chapter of Gifts by Nuruddin Farah.
There is, admittedly, a small part of me that thinks you are all Evil-Doers of the Nth Degree who simply did not desire that Fred and I should enjoy an evening alone together, and so, you played dumb and refused to win the 2009 Thanksgiving Wordle Challenge Prize of taking La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore to the Dairy Queen.
That's okay. I'll get you next time.
#12: "Contrary to expectation, there was a touch of gaiety in the air, with total strangers willing to engage in conversation on any topic, though uppermost in everyone's mind were the scarcity of fuel and the increasingly frequent power cuts." Okay, so this one? You either knew it or you did not. I truly think the first 3 were possible to tease and reason out... Though the fact that Madame Fresca could not is perhaps ample evidence to the contrary. #12 was taken from the first chapter of Gifts by Nuruddin Farah.
There is, admittedly, a small part of me that thinks you are all Evil-Doers of the Nth Degree who simply did not desire that Fred and I should enjoy an evening alone together, and so, you played dumb and refused to win the 2009 Thanksgiving Wordle Challenge Prize of taking La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore to the Dairy Queen.
That's okay. I'll get you next time.
