An all-green surprise Wordle 1,822 4/6 ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜ ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Um, wow! I grew up in the Carolinas (near the SC/NC border) and only tonight did I learn that NC has an NHL team.

Ugh...that moment when a short story grinds to a halt because the underlying assumption, when checked, is absolutely false. Regrouping today.

Yesterday's junk mail: An insurance offer. For the low low price of $3.49/month, they'll insure the underground pipe between my water meter and my house. Yeah, I think I'm gonna self-insure that one.

Door latch misbehaves. While fiddling, it sticks in the retracted position. Door won't latch. Further fiddling results in a latch that won't retract. Door can't open. Had to jimmy it to get out of the house. Got a replacement latch at Lowe's for $11.75. Installed replacement and all is well.

I just realized what a near miss we had yesterday. It was nearly Friday the 13th.

An old friend sent me a documentary on Babylon 5 today, and I just might have to revisit a series that I dismissed because I found the pilot unwatchable. Apparently, after the pilot, Things Changed.

Today is my annual reminder to heed the lesson of "Tapestry", because no matter how big your mistakes may have been or how much you wish that you hadn't made them, they are part of what created the person you are today. If you could go back and undo the mistake, you just might undo your self.

I just backed One Black Kid: A Keith Knight Animated Short on @kickstarter.com www.kickstarter.com/projects/kee...

<FirstWorldProblem> <Grumble> I've decided to make a change, but I have to wait two weeks to avoid a minor-but-paperwork-inducing tax consequence. </Grumble> It could be worse. I could have to wait until *after* San Diego Comic-Con. </FirstWorldProblem>

Getting hot today. AIR CONDITION HUMANS, NOT CHATBOTS!!!

I'd love to see cascading legal consequences, where BMW Toronto sues the chatbot provider for the Loss Plus Damages Plus Costs, then the chatbot techbros use their own product to write a legal brief, which results in Contempt of Court and an open can of judicial whoopass. driving.ca/auto-news/lo...

Snicker time!!! A Toronto car dealership's chatbot offered $27K+ for a used beamer, then the dealership tried (and failed!) to renege because they thought $27K was too much. The dealer had to back down. Heh. Heh. Heh. driving.ca/auto-news/lo...

The Scheiße must flow.

After lunch, we cooked a cauliflower/chicken casserole. We do this routinely, and one of my jobs is to chop the cauli. While cleaning up all the little white pills that fell off during prep, I realized that cauliflower is the expanded polystyrene styrofoam of the vegetable world.

The commercial for Toy Story 5 makes me want it to end like Wizards: Stinky Pete fights his way back from Barbie Island Hell, planning revenge, but when he finds the gang, Lily Pad is about to destroy them. He puts his pickax through her lithium batt to save the toys and says, "Goddam Space Toys."

Wow. The commercial for Toy Story 5 is *WEIRD*. It's like some 20-year-old "wunderkind" at Pixmouse said, "These movies are so old, nobody remembers the characters anymore. We have to reintroduce them. In fact, the entire commercial should *BE* the reintroduction."

Lovely rainstorm this morning. Just what we needed to settle the lime and fertilizer we put out.

"Aieeee! A balrog!" cried Legolas. I'm glad this one's a little smaller. "Who's a little fear demon?" share.google/wsfG8ZBvT72w...

Saying it again: Don't tell your secrets to LLMs masquerading as artificial intelligence. They, or their programmers, are probably just smart enough to blackmail you.

Busy Day! We spread 8 bags of topsoil and 3 of fertilizer. Lots of lifting and pushing, followed by stretching before bed. And I finished up with a decent editing pass on a short story, but I'll probably wake up in morning and ask, "Who wrote that crap?" 'Tis that which 'tis--Shakespeare.

Pro Tip: Don't let the first thing the customer sees in your email be the words "Marketing Department" Seriously, you've gotta have a major case of stupid to think anyone's gonna read that shyte.

When Your Kids Send You Dad Jokes: My son sent me this today, prompting my wife to use the phrase "Chip off the old block."

Wow, I had no idea how many words started those four letters. Wordle 1,811 4/6 🟩⬜🟨⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Psst! Hey, kid! Wanna try AI? Don't worry. The first dose is free. arstechnica.com/ai/2026/06/a...

An interesting testament to the persistence of identities in popular culture: I grew up watching old movies, comedy shorts, and listening to old radio programs. And even though the Dodgers moved to California the year before I was born, I still think of them as the Brooklyn Dodgers. Weird, huh?

I just watched the 2012 film version of Anna Karenina with Keira Knightley and Jude Law. Even if you hate long, ponderous Russian novels, watch THIS version for the setwork and choreography. The actors are choreographed, not merely blocked, and the sets are magnificently whimsical. Watch it!!!

The contractor who was going to aerate, lime, and fertilize the lawn has failed us. Their last kid showed up, sat in the truck for 20-30 minutes, then dropped the paperwork on the porch saying he'd done the work. "We can aerate the lawn ourselves. How hard can it be?"

Boosting the signal! www.kickstarter.com/projects/sav...

Another vid from the Great Dying Tree Removal. The level of equipment these guys bring is fantastic, taking a tree in hours instead of days or weeks. Not gonna see robots from Boston Dynamics pulling off stuff like this anytime soon. Alright, kids, can anyone spell Fargo?

On Thursday, we had a crew come out to remove a sickly, beetle-infested pine tree that was heaving the ground and threatening our neighbors oak tree. They set up a zip line to bring the branches down without smacking the horse fence. (My camera work could have been better.)

If someone starts touting AI, ask them the following: Do you use AI to do your taxes?

I just watched (on FlightAware) two aircraft have a near-miss by landing simultaneously on intersecting runways at KAND (an uncontrolled airport). One a/c was National Guard. The other was Civil Air Patrol. The telemetry does not show them waving their dicks at each other at they passed.

Early-voted in my local primary election this morning. Too bad that doesn't stop the ads from coming in.

Why are there so many aubergines (eggplants) in still life paintings? I learned from experience that they're damned hard to paint, which makes them good practice. The dark, glossy surface runs the full gamut of values and the color varies subtly all over the darn things.

If you like the 1966 Batman TV show (*and* possess a sense of humour), find Season 4 of the Sister Boniface Mysteries from BBC Studios and watch the episode titled "Biff! Pow! Zap!" You will not be disappointed.

One of the funniest things in Gary Larson's Far Side books is the edition with an index where everything is filed under T. "The one about dogs dreaming" "The one about Jane Goodall" "The one about..." (You get the idea)

Lord, I'm having fun with this! "Armageddon a lot of mileage from it today, Kronk."

It's been raining all night, and I'm *SO* glad that I no longer have to pull on boots and heavy raingear to go outside with a hoe to deal with the stormwater runoff.

If you want to see life-changing tech, here it is right here, warning pilots of plane-whacking storm cells and warning everyone else of flooding, tornadoes, and hail. Fuck Chinese robots that run footraces--this is the real thing.

Yikes! Nearly missed Wordle 1,798 6/6 🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜ ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩 ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩 ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Tonight's bot mot: "Time heals all wounds, but Lego wounds all heels."

HEIST! HEIST! HEIST!!

Chipmunk update: Putting the trap in the garden produced a negative result, so I moved it. Now it's under the horse trailer on the other side of the house. We shall see....

Literacy matters, ever if you're a chipmunk. Chip and Dale are thrilled about moving to their new home in the forest, far away from our HVAC unit.

I watched Barton Fink two nights ago. It was... It was... Um... One line really struck me, though: "You're just a tourist with a typewriter. I *live* here."

I have decided that I don't want to see any more posts telling me about stupid articles in The Guardian. I've seen enough to safely assume that the rest of the barrel is rotten apples and roly-poly fish heads. The Guardian's url is now in my filter list.

I have just realized that the Turing Test fell a little short. The test for human-level artificial intelligence is not the ability to converse (which can apparently be done with clever regurgitation), but the ability to imagine--to create new religions and start holy wars. I can't wait. 😐

My parents were hoarders, including books, which was a problem. I've been trying to be better about that and make things easier on my own children. My @tkingfisher.com collection was overflowing the shelf, so I gave it to my local library. Today I paid the books a visit to make sure they were okay.