Leftovers? Barbecue!

     Last weekend, I made a vindaloo-ish pork roast ("boneless Boston butt," supply your own punch line), marinated overnight in a mixture of apple cider vinegar, balsamic vinegar, ginger and curry powder.  I roasted it with turnips, apple, hot pickled cherry peppers, two kinds of cherry tomatoes, potatoes, celery, carrots, onion, shishito peppers, shitake  mushrooms and canned crushed tomatoes.  Cooked until it was almost falling apart, it made a nice meal -- and there were plenty of leftovers.

     It seemed like most of it might make a nice start on the kind of barbecue that consists of shredded meat in a thick sauce, usually eaten on a bun, so I saved it.

     Tonight, I started with a little sweet Italian sausage, browned, and added a small can of tomato paste to it with a little water.  While it cooked, I defrosted the pork roast, vegetables and broth and added them to the meat and tomatoes with a little curry powder and some smoky barbecue sauce.  I fished out the big chunks of potatoes and set them aside, then used round-ended kitchen shears to shred the meat, while mashing the remaining vegetables.

     The end result was shredded pork and sausage in a sauce thick enough to stand up a spoon in.  I added some more barbecue sauce and a little ketchup as it cooked, checking for taste.

     It simmered while I microwaved the potatoes and mashed them with milk, butter and salt.  They came out okay, though they were not the prettiest-looking mashed potatoes -- they looked like mashed yams.

     We had some store-bakery hamburger buns, unsliced and pretty substantial.  I cut them and loaded them up with the meat and sauce, added potatoes on the side and there was dinner, just as tasty as I had hoped. 

Cruft

     Yesterday, I removed around five Gigabytes of junk from my computer, most of it left from the recent Windows update, the one that tried to jam Copilot, their latest Clippie/Cortana* thing, into my ancient, steam-powered Analytical Engine.

     Of course it gummed things up.  It might as well have been a wooden shoe.  The removal process appears to have left some scars, too, in the form of a series of browser crashes.  These usually get better over time, as the usual level of cached nonsense rebuilds.

     When color came to BBSing, I was not a fan.  When GUIs came to text editors, I was extremely not a fan.  (I'm still not, but it's the standard.)  When the World Wide Web's pictures and Hypertext shoved the old Internet down the basement stairs and locked the door, I was not a fan.

     Oh, it's pretty.  And a well-designed GUI or webpage can be remarkably easy to use.  But it runs on cruft: layers and layers of code that does not do the thing, but which does the stuff that reads or displays the stuff that talks to the stuff that calls up the stuff that shoves the other stuff into the hopper of the part that does the thing and spews out the result -- into the waiting arms of more stuff that calls up the stuff that loads the result into other stuff that massages it and filters it and hands it off to stuff that pushes buttons and turns knobs in order to show you the stuff that displays some stuff that reports the results of the thing -- and it does that over and over and over, very quickly, for everything from the most trivial to the most vital part of the display on the screen and wherever else the input comes from and the result goes.  It's monkey motion, set up to keep you entertained rather than perform the task.  In terms of writing, WordPerfect (should have looked it up!) PerfectWriter running under CP/M does everything MS Word can do except embed and edit images, often in less-awkward ways, with 64 Kilobytes of memory and a pair of single-sided 40-track 5.25" floppy discs that held a few hundred K -- but it requires the user to learn or look up a large number of inline commands and keyboard shortcuts.  The cruft was in the user's head, where it fit right in with all the other cruft we think with, self-deleting if unused.

     The useless cruft on my PC just builds up and up.  I have to rely on utilities from the operating system and software makers to try to clear it out (or, in one case, deleting a file folder known to cause problems as it grows) and in the meantime, the operationally-necessary cruft never goes away, and will eventually force me to replace this computer.

     I suppose if I had a real Babbage, I'd be griping about backlash in the gear trains or a sticky carry adder.
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* I'm starting to C a pattern here.  I blame Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

Apathy Magic?

     I don't quite get it, but after yesterday's post titled "I Don't Care," somehow the promised thunderstorms never made it here.

     The only possible comment is, "Whatever."

     Elsewhere, the campaign season's various tempests rage, in venues ranging from teapots to Bobby Lee's wife's old family home,* replete with everything misidentified dogs to chainsawed whales and a guy who apparently doesn't know that for much of the history of public education, spinsters were preferred as schoolteachers and marriage was often the end of a woman's teaching career (after all, the thinking went, she'll have her own family to look after now).†  And that last is the "traditional values" guy, not the sort of progressive who might be expected to miss such large-print historical footnotes.

     It ain't over yet and you can expect more of the same -- much, much more, with plenty of mud and strangeness for everyone.  I'm still backing the team that promises to not burn it all down.  That's a preposterously low bar, but here we are, in another election with a very wide swath of voters working out who they dislike least.
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* The history of what is now Arlington National Cemetery is very nearly a capsule history of the United States, from cold, hard fact to myth-making that is variously rosy, horrific and vengeful.
 
† The writing-critique group I chair often takes me to task for sentences so long that Faulkner and Henry James would look askance at them.  I'm certainly glad neither of them -- and my crit-group peers -- are here to read this one.

I Don't Care....

     You can call it climate or you can call it weather.  Either way, it's too darned hot.  95°F* or more yesterday and the day before, and today?  More of the same, with thunderstorms.  Thursday, the meteorologists are calling for a cold snap, probably no more than 85°F at the worst.  I'd better break out my winter coat.
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* That's like, what, 355° Centigrade or 356° Celsius (old style), right?

"Don't Know Much About History..."

     Or even about Constitutionality (with apologies to the songwriters).  While most people would agree that the First Amendment protects some of the most fundamental of human rights, not everyone agrees.

     Take the GOP's Presidential candidate, speaking yesterday at the 146th General Conference and Exhibition of the National Guard Association of the United States,* a lobbying and general membership organization of and for National Guard members: "I want to get a law passed.  Everyone tells me, oh sure, it's very hard. You burn an American flag, you go to jail for one year.  Got to do it, we got to do it.  They say, 'Sir, that's not constitutional.'  We'll make it constitutional."

     It doesn't work that way.  Don't take my word for it; ask the experts.  Ask the United States Supreme Court.†  You can't make it constitutional without undermining basic rights.

     I think our flag should be treated with respect.  I think our government ought to conduct itself in such a way that only the most desperate or ill-intentioned of persons or groups would ever burn our flag with disrespect, or otherwise mistreat it.  But to do so is indeed "expressive conduct," and it should not -- per the Court, cannot -- be made illegal.

     Burning your draft card was a violation of 50 U.S.C. § 462(b)(3), carrying a fine of $10,000 and up to five years in a Federal jail.  The Supreme Court ruled that bit of fire-setting was more than free speech (it also bollixed the draft process) and let the law stand.  And yet the burning of draft cards during the Vietnam War, often very publicly, did not cease.  So I'm doubtful of the deterrent effect of a year in jail for flag-burning, especially since an exception would have to made for the proper disposal of U. S. flags, a process which also involves (respectful) burning.
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* It took me several minutes to track this down.  News reports mostly left it at "spoke before the National Guard," which is not at all accurate and gives a misleading impression of the circumstances.
 
† And read the fine print.  In at least one of the cases covered, the accused were said to have stolen the U. S. flag they burned from a post office.  Whoops -- that'd be "destruction of government property," for which they were convicted and fined.  A couple of them did (minor) jail time.  Free speech?  Sure, but you're going to have to supply your own props, not steal them. 

Got Morality?

     An interesting essay -- it's a chapter from a book -- on the basic elements of morality, shared across our cultures.  The piece presents itself as addressing the need for religion as a basis of morals (or at least of moral behavior), but I'm not sure that's something that lends itself to rational debate.

     While moral behavior as the article defines it is shown to be its own reward, people are strongly motivated by punishment/reward structures.  Assuming you believe the religion you practice -- and surely you do -- the idea of some kind of cosmic scorekeeping and reckoning-up is a very strong impetus to do right.

     While I will happily argue that it's not the only source or foundation for moral behavior, no religion that I know of is inherently immoral, at least towards co-religionists and most often towards other people as well.  I'll join with the Founders and Framers in believing religious faith in general to be of public utility, while refraining from singling any out.  I don't happen to practice one (and I like to believe my behavior is nevertheless moral) but I'd sure hate to live someplace where religions were banned.

A Sure Sign

     Summer must be starting to wind down, because I have made refrigerator pickles!

     I'd bought a couple of cucumbers to slice and add to a salad-in-a-bag, and used only half of one.  That left a nice big stack of cucumber slices that I didn't want to waste.

     I made the brine "by ear," which is my usual approach, and I always make it too strong.  I started with white vinegar,  balsamic vinegar, sugar, salt, onion powder (didn't have fresh onions) and salt, enouh to cover and float the slices.  That sat in the fridge overnight.  After a taste-check the next morning, I cut the brine 50/50 with bottled water and added more sugar and a little balsamic vinegar.  By yesterday evening, the pickles had taken on color and flavor.  This morning, I cut the brine with water again and added a dash of sugar: they're ready!  Still cucumber-y, with sweetness, sour and a little spice.

It Takes A Toll -- And Pays One

     Yesterday was online writing-critique group day.  Chairing it is an effort for me.  Oh, the members of the group are nice and as well-behaved as any group of writers, possibly better than many; but I'm just not that social.  The group starts pretty early for a Saturday, and I get ready for it in some haste.  Often, I've been up late the night before, polishing my own written critiques.*  The meeting runs an hour and afterward, I'm worn out: an introvert has to make an effort at that kind of thing.  It's still fun, like mountain-climbing is fun, but I do have to take time to recover afterward.

     After an hour break, the full mystery-writer's organization meets, a combination of online and in-person, and I can sit back and watch the business meeting and whatever speaker or other presentation we have afterward.  But I don't plan for much afterward; I'm still winding down.

     Most of my life, I've felt guilty about this kind of reaction -- what kind of miserable ingrate is tuckered out after hanging out with interesting friends?  Only in the last several years have I begun to admit to myself that yes, that's just how it is for introverts, and yes, I am one.
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* This sounds fancier than it is.  A "critique" in that context is a set of marginal notes about things as dull as sentence structure and grammar, nuts and bolts matters like "Please add more speech tags here -- I can't figure out if it's Thomas Edison or Gypsy Rose Lee talking," or continuity/accuracy notes, "Lincoln gets into a Ford Model T at the White House, but arrives at Gettysburg in a DC-3.  Do you think that's right?" and only rarely high-level stuff about plot and theme.  Especially good writing gets pointed out, and most manuscripts get a paragraph of reaction at the beginning or end.  

Frantic Catch-Up Day

     Coming up on the end of my vacation and I'm trying to get some more of the stuff done that I was planning to do.  Oh, I have done quite a lot of it, but I hoped to do more.  Instead, I have slept, and I don't regret it.  I've been short on sleep for a long time.  Since the start of the pandemic, I have not slept as well as I once did; there's too darned much to worry about.

     But today, there's lots to do.

Out, AI, O-U-T!

     Microsoft snuck "Copilot" onto my computer when I wasn't looking.  They didn't even ask first.  Since the machine is old, slow and short on storage space, it bollixed everything up and had to be removed.

     It's probably time for a "new" computer.*  For interoperability, it'll need to run Windows.  I'd like to move to Linux, but writing these days requires .doc or docx files most of the time, and my experience with the Rasberry Pi showed that it's awkward at best to get compatible files off a *nix box with any certainty that they'll play nice on an editor's copy of Word.
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* I have, in fact, purchased exactly two brand-new desktop computers in my long string of machines going back to MS-DOS and before: a Coleco Adam and, about a decade back, a nice little Acer package from Woot! that eventually succumbed to a nasty virus that neither I nor the IT experts at work could scrub.  Everything else has been used/refurb/open box.  Laptops, I've done better, a couple of Eee minis (one great, one sluggish) and the MacBook Air, which is probably the single most expensive computer I have purchased. But the Macbook Pro and Surface Pro were used, and my Surface RT -- now about as dead-ended a product as the Adam -- was a new-in-box but superseded model.  The little Surface Pro recently scrolled off the support roster; I've kept it off wi-fi so it doesn't find out and I'm looking at it with an eye to *nix installation.

Shelf-Building

     I'm off this week, and I have spent several hours over the last three days working on an addition to my book shelves -- one day of cutting the wood, one day of routing slots in the vertical sides for the shelves themselves, and today I assembled it.  Tomorrow, I plan to clean up pencil marks with mineral spirits and sand it.

     Each day's task uses a different set of tools (with some overlap) and each one ends with the project in a form that can be set aside easily and picked up without having to backtrack.

     If these shelves work out, they'll finish closing the sides of the window seat with a three-shelf alcove on each end.  I have more plans for the library/dining room, but I'm taking it one step at a time.

I'd Rather Watch Sausage Being Made....

     See history in the making?  You'd probably have more fun touring a sausage factory.  At least they have to hose the place out regularly and pass out free samples after the tour.

     We've got one major party political conventional done and another is running and from twenty thousand feet, I wish 'em all a good time.  Conventions these days are mostly rah-rah exercises in boosterism for the party faithful, and it keeps them out of trouble.

     If I was talking about politics seriously these days, I would have to spend endless hours explaining, yet again, that no, the U. S. Constitution says exactly zero about the nominating process.  Parties can pull their starting pitcher and send a reliever out right up, to, well, h'mm, the Constitution doesn't even mention a cut-off date.  The political parties and states have got rules about that, with an effective deadline at the end of August for ballot access to a sufficient number of states to have a chance of winning.  Up to the party conventions, it's wide open; afterwards, if there's an unexpected vacancy in their candidate for President or Vice-President, each party has ways of getting enough movers and shakers together to pick some poor sap who's acceptable to a majority of them and shove him or her onstage -- as long as they don't do it too late to ensure ballot access, which might get a little sticky.  So if any candidate, pundit or politician claims it's "unconstitutional" for the Democrats to replace President Biden with Vice-President Harris at the top of their ticket, laugh at 'em; they don't know what they are talking about.

     Likewise, complaints about "unfairness" over candidates, tactics, leaks, etc. are silly, preschoolers whining that they're not getting enough time in the sandbox.  It's politics; it's not especially "fair" and the throwing of dirt at one's opponents dates back to Thomas Jefferson and John Adams in the 1800 Presidential election.  Like parts of the sausage factory, it may not be especially nice to watch, but that's the process.

     I think this is an important election, possibly the kind of watershed moment historians point to afterward.  Living in boring times would be a lot nicer, if you ask me; I'd prefer an election in which we're mostly concerned about what the incoming Presidential spouse is going to do about holiday decorations and if the next President prefers fishing, golf or natural history for relaxation.  But that's not what we've got, and as long as the contenders stick to spirited debate with a side of mud-slinging and name-calling, I'm okay with it; we've seen what happens when a candidate doesn't stop there, and it wasn't good.