cantankerosity | - Part 5

New Category for Posts at Coots – Up with

 Posted by at 15:26  Up With
Sep 022014
 
up arrow
Image by TheTruthAbout… via Flickr

Maybe you think that we are too negative at Coots.  All the time you keep hearing about things we don’t like.  You might conclude that Coots are never positive and that we don’t like things.  You would be very wrong but to be fair – how would you know.  After long conferences  and much cantankerosity, the Coots have a solution.  We are going to show you our positive sides from time to time.  We are going to title these posts ‘Up With” and in them we will highlight things that we like and want to see more of.  Look for the first of these posts soon and then expect to see more of them from time to time.

Long Live the Sanctimonious Old Sheep!

 Posted by at 15:26  Coots Lessons, Plain 'ol Cantankerous, principles
Sep 022014
 
Christmas card with Caspar Milquetoast by H. T...

Image via Wikipedia

Today, for a change, we are serious!

You’re accustomed to light hearted, trivial musings about life here at Cantankerous Old Coots but today brace yourself for some deeper thinking. If you thought that checking out the Coots would be mindless diversion, today, the Coots are asking for more.  Change is in the air.  Lick your finger and check which way the wind is blowing.  When you feel secure then read on.

One of the original ideas for the Cantankerous Old Coots was to provide a framework for people to shed their Casper Milquetoast personas and develop an unique brand of what we like to call cantankerousity- letting the chips fall where they may and standing up for yourself in a world that glorifies sheep. (We never said that we weren’t suckers for cliches).

We tried inspiration.

So began the series of Coots Lessons, intended to help people foster an independent frame of mind.  We formulated 16 Coots lessons covering a wide range of life experiences. These lessons were intended to provide the basis for an E-Book and eventually a body of instruction in the Cantankerous Old Coots University.

And then?

Well, life happens, and it seems that Cantankerous Old Coots have just as many problems reading the public as anybody else. We published that E-Book- a beautifully designed primer for getting started on the road to Cantankerosity. The only price for this valuable product was to join our community by signing up for our list. We anticipated that every reader would want to have this helpful document on their very own personal computers for easy reference and encouragement.

We were wrong.

At every step along the road, we sought evidence that somewhere out in cyberspace, there is an audience yearning to break out of the mindless ordinariness of daily life; the dreary monotony of not making waves. Alas, it seems that independent thought is dead in modern society. Instead of an eager audience of cantankerous people or even cantankerous wannabees, it seems that our vast and growing audience of readers is nothing but lookiloos- folks that love the idea of independent thinking but  are too afraid of their shadows (or what other people might think) to actually be independent.

Not Coots but Sheep

At the next Coot’s Convergence (that’s a business meeting for the uninitiated) I’m going to propose that we change the blog’s mission statement to better fit our audience. I’m going to propose that Cantankerous Old Coots be changed to Sanctimonious Old Sheep. Under the new motto we will revise our lessons to help our audience fulfill their destiny to make no waves, get lost in the background and make absolutely no difference in the world for anybody in their life.

The New Agenda

These are the tentative changes to the first five Coots, I mean Sheep, lessons.

Coot Lesson #1 – Let your feeling out!

Sheep Lesson #1 – Embrace the Uniformity!

Coot Lesson #2 – We don’t care what you think.

Sheep Lesson #2 It’s all about them

Coot Lesson #3 – Polite is over rated!

Sheep Lesson #3 – Mind your manners!

Coot Lesson 4- Say It When You Feel It!

Sheep Lesson #4 – Not so Fast

Coot Lesson 5- Let your face show what you think.

Sheep Lesson #5 – Show your happy face.

Give ’em what they want! That’s our new motto.

I’m convinced that this change will bring this blog into convergence with our audience, leaving them safely in their comfort zones and sleeping peacfully each night. I think that mindlessly reinforcing the conformity and bland acceptance that is modern life will grow our audience even faster in the future and provide safe cover for all the sheep out their to join our community and leave their own conventional wisdom in the comment area.

Cantankerous Old Coots is so out of date and 20th century. Long live the Sanctimonious Old Sheep!  Go ahead now sheep, it’s safe to comment!

 

 

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Life Mistakes: What one thing would you like to do over?

 Posted by at 15:25  Problems and solutions, Reflections
Sep 022014
 

I’ve got a question today.

For some reason I feel mellow and my cantankerosity tank seems empty. I know it can’t last but meanwhile I’ve still got a post to write.  So today we try something new.  I don’t want to rail and rant. I just want to engage our readers. Today we are doing show and tell.

One of the harsh realities of life is that there aren’t any do overs. You go down the trail once and when it’s done, it’s done. You can think about the experiences you missed along the way and imagine how different things might have turned out with alternative selections but you can never change the reality of your choices.

Tell me your biggest do over wish.

I want to hear your perspective on your life.  No big generalities or conventional wisdom.  Confess!  We all establish priorities and principles that guide our life decisions. We don’t always honor those priorities and principles however. That is my story and I bet it is yours too.

We missed our Swiss Family Robinson moment

Sometime it’s just too hard and we take the easy path. Other times we choose the safe path; the secure job instead of the one that is exciting, the guided tour instead of the travel adventure, the challening path instead of the easy one, the sure thing instead of the big risk.

I did all those things along my life path. How much difference it made and whether my life today would have been better or worse I can’t say. I do know that the one thing I regret most is not creating a lasting memory of at least one outrageous family adventure when my kids were at home. The time with our kids was short and I was distracted by other things I thought were important at the time. If I could go back and create some kind of family adventure. I would have to fight to do it because neither my wife or kids would have gone willingly for a month on the beach in Belize or a rented boat in the Caribbean. That kind of outrageous idea never crossed my mind and if it did, I was too much a wimp to make it happen.  We missed our Swiss Family Robinson moment.

That’s my confession.

No Cantakerosity from this Old Coot today. What I would like to hear is what thing you wish you had had the guts to do earlier in your life. You don’t have to be an old coot. You can be a young coot or not a coot at all. Let it out. You will feel better and I won’t feel like such a loser.

Jack Nicholson Rant As Good as it Gets

 Posted by at 18:09  rants
Jul 292014
 

One of our missions here at COC is to help our readers bring out the cantankerosity hidden within.  To wash away the filters and restrictions imposed by society on our daily exchanges.  Because of the disapproval of any honest disagreement or disapproval in our modern and civil times. it is difficult to even comprehend a cantankerous frame of mind.    From time to time we will bring the best examples from film to COC in our zeal to foster the inner cantankerosity of our readers.

Jack Nicholson has certainly earned a place here at COC. You can expect to see more of Jack’s exquisite rants over time but today we want to start with this scene from As Good As It Gets where Jack is the eccentric writer in an apartment building.   In this scene, he demonstrates the controlled rant.  No wild hysterics.  No shouting. But he makes it very clear that he does not want to be disturbed.  He pulls no punches.  He shows not an ounce of sensitivity or compassion.  This is a quality rant.  Enjoy and take good notes.  There will be a test later.  BTW do you think the sensitive neighbor is a mollycoddle?

For Today, a Contest!

 Posted by at 18:09  Coot Law, Coots Lessons, Technology
Jul 292014
 

*** since this post was first published there have been 233270 visitors to it.  There have been a total of ZERO submissions.  c’mon people get on the ball…send us your face!***

Now hear this Current and aspiring Coots!  Very shortly we are going to be putting out our first product.  I know that is exciting enough to make you all pee yourselves with excitement.  You may want to get a doctor to look at that though.  Don’t worry in any case because that’s why they make Depends.

So far we haven’t got a lot of participation  here at COC.  So since you refuse to respond to the sticks we throw, we are going to break out the carrots just this once.  We want your face!  And we are offering a prize for the best face.  There!  That is as nice as we get.

What does your best Cantankerous Coot face look like?

By now you should have mastered the basics for Cantankerosity or maybe you were a natural and had what it takes all along.  It doesn’t matter because we want to see the results.  Show us your best Coot face.  Take a picture and if it doesn’t break the camera send it to us.  We want to see the Cantankerosity that we have inspired.  We want to use your faces in out upcoming E-Book and at the blog. You could be famous.

So scrunch up your face and practice your cantankerousness.  Little children should either laugh or weep at the face you finish with.  Preferably both.  Then take the best picture you can and send it to us.  This contest will end at midnight on July 10th MDT when we get enough submissions to actually have a contest.  Right now, there is all the time in the world You have until next Saturday night to get us a picture.

There will be a prize for the best picture.  That prize will remain a mystery until the contest ends.

Send entries to    contests@cantankerousoldcoots.com Please include your name, address, credit card numbers, pin numbers, measurements,….errrr….Just your name and the picture will be fine.

Now for some fine print.  Any image submitted must be your own image.  We don’t want copyrighted images from other websites that will get us in trouble with the copyright lawyers when we start to sell our own stuff.  Besides we want to see you, our readers.

Second, by submitting an image for the contest you agree that we can do what we want with it.  This includes the website, CantankerousOldCoots.com, and any e-book or print book that we may publish in the future.  Your only compensation for the picture will be a credit to you and probably a link to your own site.

Third, By submitting a picture, you agree that, to the best of your knowledge, this picture does not have any previous copyrights that are being infringed.  If you take the pic yourself, it shouldn’t have any copyright issues at all.

Fourth, unless you tell me not to add you to the list, by submitting a picture you will be automatically added to our email list and be among the first to receive the new e-book when it comes out, and if you are the winner, it will have your picture on it.  You will not be getting a double opt-in confirmation email from us, but unless it says somewhere in your picture email that you don’t want to be on the list, you will be, and this constitutes permission to do so.

Sorry for all of the legal mumbo jumbo but I really can’t afford to get sued by anyone for a silly website contest.

So go out right now and take a picture, preferably in focus, and send it to

contests@cantankerousoldcoots.com

Remember, you have until the sands run out on July 10th to submit!  I hope we can get 1000 entries.  Tell your friends too!

Please retweet, digg, stumble upon, comment, carrier pigeon, morse code or otherwise let people know about this contest!

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