Ice Fishing on Lake Ontario

Just a quick shot I took several years ago of an ice fisherman on Lake Ontario to add to the collection of fine photos to be found at https://darkpinesphoto.wordpress.com/2015/03/08/ice-fishing-lines-out-on-elliot-lake/.

Merry Christmas, Readers!!

This is not an actual image of HoaiPhai, it was downloaded from a Facebook page of someone who doesn’t know where they got it. If this is yours, Nice picture and I’ll credit you or remove it, as you like.

HoaiPhai has not fallen off the earth (entirely)
and will be posting something more substantial soon!

Merry Christmas!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!!

Happy (belated) Cinco de Mayo!

Cinco de Mayo, which means “sink full of mayonnaise” in Spanish, is the day of the year Mexicans take a few minutes to go through their fridges and throw away any jars of mayonnaise they find that are past their Best Before dates. Think of it as the alimentary equivalent of checking smoke detectors on Fall Back Day.

Unimpressed By… Part I: Coffee

It takes something really special to get me excited about a cup of coffee.

Intro to the “Unimpressed” Series of Posts

I’ve been loitering on this planet for over five decades and I’ve become a bit jaded. A lot of things that apparently impress a lot of people underwhelm me and what’s worse is that the situation has gone well beyond my being blasé, I’m beginning to get downright irritated at some modern trends.

It’s so frustrating to see people buying into stupid crazes like sheep. Because of this I sometimes find myself cranky and can imagine myself twenty years down the road as being one of those old guys who scream at the pigeons in the park —some might argue that’s pretty much where I am right now. So let’s take a look at some recent things that really get my goat and, if you’re lucky, I might even mention some solution you can personally implement or point you in the direction of some bastion where scum-sucking “progress” has not eroded a once good thing.

Things Were Real Easy for Kids When I Was One

Many of the things that Paul talks about in his post “When I Was a Kid Things Were Tough” were pretty much the same when I was a kid but things were a whole lot rosier for me than Paul seems to remember from his childhood. Don’t get me wrong—I’m a huge fan of Paul Johnson. Not only can he string a bunch of words together and make them sound both interesting and entertaining but he has a woolly crop of hair and the original number of chins God gave him. Before you get the wrong impression I’d just like to say that this post is not about Paul’s scalp being almost completely hidden from public view but about how great things were when I was a kid and I wouldn’t hold his deprived second-rate childhood against him for a second. Because I’m older than Paul, I was young before him and in those Good Old Days there probably was a different socio-pulmonary context which made me being a kid seem like a breeze. Maybe Paul’s unfortunate recollections are the result of the times he grew up in or maybe he was one of the kids two blocks over I used to pick on when I was a teenager, I just don’t know.

I Have a Couple of Groundhog Day Questions…

WTF? A groundhog in a tree? Does this mean we can expect six weeks of flooding?

First of all, I don’t know if you’re supposed to say this but “Happy Groundhog Day”. I can never remember if people expect me to greet them with a  “Happy Groundhog Day” or maybe a “Merry Groundhog Day” or whatever. What’s the protocol? Is today one of those special participation-optional holidays that gets a couple of minutes on the news but people who are not directly involved in groundhog wrangling and/or showmanship are not obligated to do anything at all and no one calls them Scrooge?

Resurrecting “My Response to ‘100 Reasons Not to Look at Porn’ “

Just a quick note… I’m trying to get back in the blogging swing of things so I began looking through stuff and doing a little site maintenance. What I found was one of my posts was listed as a draft but I’m sure I posted it because it has a bunch of associated readers’ comments.

The bashful post in question is about whether porn is good or bad and is in the literary form of me making remarks to young churchgoers’ reasons why porn is bad.

Please go check it out at “My Response to ‘100 Reasons Not to Look at Porn’ “.

Thanks!

2013 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog. But before we get into the report I’d like to thank all of my readers, including the ones who didn’t come to read at all but just to look at pretty pictures, for making this happen. This year I’ll try my best to tear myself away from wherever the hell my free-time has been going and to churn out more posts and to visit your blogs. And that’s about as close I came to a New Year’s resolution this year, my friends.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 12,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

What To Do When Your Back Is Against The Wall

“The Italian Wall” is a bane to The Redneck Princess. From this angle it doesn’t look to me like a major eyesore but the imposition of obstructions can be vexing to those who for many years have had the benefit of scenic vistas.
Photo courtesy TheRedneckPrincess.net… if “courtesy” means that I snagged it off her site without her express permission.

Welcome back, boys and girls, to Uncle HoaiPhai’s problem solving club!

This week we will be tackling a problem The Redneck Princess is having with her neighbours in Abbottabad Abbotsford, BC — a problem so vexing to her that she has written at least twice about it on her own blog, here and here.

Revenge Inc. Part II: The Settling of Accounts

Revenge is never pretty (but it can be quite satisfying).

Last week in Revenge Inc. I made my readership an offer they couldn’t refuse. I don’t want to say that the vast majority of them refused my offer because should anything sudden and unfortunate happen to them a coroner’s inquest could infer that I might have a “motiva uvam acerbam” [sour grapes motive]. So, to be on the safe side, let’s just say that only two of them accepted my most generous offer.

Let’s dive right in and solve some problems!