I told that to whatever “AI” art generator WordPress uses. This was the result. There was no iterated refinement, this is the first thing, as is.
Archives
All posts for the month February, 2026
After yesterday’s post of He-Man and She-Ra and the baddies thereof, how about some music? Someone went and did a mashup of the themes. And, unlike all too many mashups, the result is rather good.
Consider this meme image. Never mind the words, this is about the character(s) in the image(s).
That, if you were not aware, is Skeletor, a character from the He-Man (and too a degree, She-Ra) cartoons. As you might guess, he’s the bad guy. Or at least that was so in the cartoons. So it’s a bit amusing to see all the memes that use his as neutral to good. You’d expect a good guy character for that, and there are/were plenty to choose from. Of course the obvious choice be the hero of the series:
He-Man. But curiously he gets less meme-time as it were than Skeletor.
There is also She-Ra and the big bad guy of her cartoon, Hordak. While there might well be memes using Hordak, I do not recall any. There are also very few featuring She-Ra. Perhaps the one I am most aware of is, unfortunately, this thing featuring the “new” She-Ra. Going for a younger look, and being a girl rather than a woman would not necessarily be off-putting. This design, however, just begs for mockery. Evidently the writing managed to somehow be even worse.
Oh, there are a few Hordak memes. This, with Hordak and the rest of his She-Ra baddies is amusing.
One gadget, or set of gadgets, I recently acquired was a Bluetooth keyboard. Well, two. A screwy split “ergonomic” (my tail!) keyboard and a separate numeric pad. The numeric pad is the thing – it’s what the laptop lacks. I don’t truly miss it, but… I haven’t been traveling with the laptop yet either. The laptop is nice and all, and the Bluetooth on it (eventually) connected to both main keyboard and numeric pad at the same time.
The desktop machine… seemed to only tolerate one or the other. Alright, it uses a Bluetooth USB dongle of… a(n un)Certain Age. Alrigth, maybe time for an upgrade? So I order a nice, modern USB Bluetooth adapter, not just a sliver of USB, but a thing with a nice “rubber ducky” antenna for some real range.
And the damn thing is Windows-Only (why are Windows-Only hardware manufacture permitted to exist in this allegedly Modern, Enlightened Age?) I end up giving the useless thing to the cleaning guy at work. It’s not worth the hassle of trying to do a return.
Alright, I go hunting for a LINUX COMPATIBLE adapter. And I seem to find one. The title says LINUX. The customer reviews says it works… and I get it and the instructions say – VERY POINTEDLY — otherwise. I try anyway. It ALMOST works. The system sees it… for a moment. It finds some things…but NOT the headset I use. Alright, I just ran an update – one that even had the kernel update… – so I reboot. That should move things along, right?
WRONG! Now the system doesn’t even acknowledge the adapter is there – save for a command line tool. I look around. Nothing makes any sense. The advice on the net is to go the newest kernel… which I have just done as a matter of routine. What were those reviewers smoking? I must avoid such poison.
Alright, I bail on the new adapter (but if I install the OS from latest new ISO… instead of standard update? Maaaaybe??? So I am keeping the damn thing… for when the time comes).
Oh hey, there’s a long unused wireless adapter for a long dead headset… BUT… it has a USB extension cord because screwy as Logitech might be, they have at least one person who has at least a minimal comprehension of how Radio works. Snag the cable. Ditch the ancient headset adapter. Plug cable into main box, plug USB Bluetooth “thumbnail” into the other end of the cable in the nice little stand. Set that closer to center of house… oh, alright… I haven’t checked the keyboard & numeric pad setup but that’s no longer important. They work with the laptop, good enough. BUT… now the limited headset range…is FAR less limited. Sure, I might lose signal in the basement, but most everywhere else? No more garbling and disconnects.
So, success… sort of of.
But the makers of Win-only anything still ought to be publicly horsewhipped at a minimum, repeat offenders tarred and feathered. For chronic cases, well, there are plenty trees and lampposts that could use the decor if the tar and feathers aren’t sufficient clue. But pikes could also work. Right, Vlad?
FIB (noun) – In Wisconsinite, a F[rea]king Illinois Bast[age]
I used to live a few miles north of Merrill, Wisconsin. Between Wausau and Merrill Highway 51 had been modernized to a 4-lane divided highway, but just north of Merrill, it reverted to a typical 2-lane rural highway. This was alright most of the time, but not always. Travelling from Merrill to Tomahawk on the Fourth of July could take hours and you’d never get into the highest gear, the traffic load was so heavy.
Thus, eventually, the highway between Merrill and Tomahawk was also modernized to be a 4-lane divided highway. It was at this time I worked at a place in Rothschild (a bit south of Wausau, if not an outright agglomeration of Wausau-Schofield-Rothschild-Kronenwetter). Thus I traveled to and from work via Highway 51. I was very familiar with it. And I was also very familiar with the curve just at the end of the 4-lane, just before the 2-lane. There were plenty REDUCED SPEED AHEAD and CONSTRUCTION ZONE signs, and a spot that was ideal for a cop with a speed radar to sit all but unseen just after the speed limit changed to construction zone 45 mph (from 65).
If you ever find yourself driving in Wisconsin (on Hwy 51, anyway) and your speedometer fails, you can get by. Not just by timing how long it is between mile markers, but by observing license plates. If you don’t see any vehicles with Illinois plates passing you, slow down! If a lot of vehicles with Wisconsin plates are passing you, you can speed up a bit.
One fine morning was returning home from work. And I was holding the limit (or maybe slightly more, yes – I had a working speedometer) and sure enough, the Illinois drivers were passing me. Not my problem. I kept right and let them get around me.
And then I approached the construction zone. I’ve slowed down to 45 mph or even a hair under by the time I get into the construction zone. And the FIBs are still zipping around me. Why, sure enough, there’s “Smokey” and he’s pulled out to be seen and even gotten out of his car, quite visible and waves everyone who just passed me to pull over… which they do. It was a rather large collection on the side of the road. I wave to the officer. He waves me to continue on my way. I was grinning, possibly giggling, the rest of the way home.
Alas, what the eyes have is/are cataracts. Thus in a week’s time I’ll be undergoing surgery to replace a lens in one eye. And the next day, a repeat for the other eye. The end result should mean clearer vision, and not an absolute need of corrective lenses to see things at distance. I haven’t seen well at distance for some considerable time – decades. Things have gotten bad enough lately that I do see a dim halo around bright things such as streetlight or the moon. I see stars as doubles – with either eye alone. Sharp lines have “ghosts”, sort of like a weird visual echo – only to the left rather than right as analog TV ghosting was.
I will still need lenses to correct for other things, but they will be lighter and not critical for every last thing. Being able to use a telescope or binoculars sans glasses and not having to adjust the focus control to the very end of its range (and hoping it’s still enough) will be most welcome.
Do you recall the rather repetitive I’ve Got My Mind Set On You by George Harrison?
Weird Al heard it, and this happened:
I’ve Got My Mind Set On You once came over the work PA Muzak. I started in with This Song’s Just Six Words Long where I could. A younger coworker said, “That sounds like it should be a Weird Al parody.” “It was.”
This is a week late, the anniversary of the Call of Evil being February 1st.
Six Years Ago Today, They Chose the Lie by Justin Hart
An excerpt:
Bryce Nickels named them: Fauci. Collins. Farrar. Holmes. Andersen. Garry. Rambaut. Fouchier. Koopmans. Drosten.
Read those names again. These weren’t fringe players. These were the people our governments, our media, and our institutions told us to trust. These were The Science™.
And on that call, they made a choice. Not a scientific choice — a political one.
A commentary from “TT”:
“I’d been following the news out of China because of the high water at the 3 Gorges Dam earlier in the season. I was so far ahead of the news in the US on Covid. That it was engineered was determined quite early. And I knew it had been around longer than claimed too; The CCP tried to blame it on the USA spreading it in Wuhan at the Military Games in fall 2019. That was the oopsie admission by the CCP that the virus had been spreading since that time or before.”
Gee, shooting yourself in the foot isn’t a good long term investment strategy? Who knew?
Moderna curbing investments in vaccine trials due to US backlash
The Elegant Ungulate 