Hey! It’s April Fools Day! What a Load of Crap.

 Posted by at 11:48  Plain 'ol Cantankerous, rants
Nov 262014
 

Hey Folks, Justin here.  I am coming to you live on what is one of the stupidest holidays in the entire world.  April Fools Day.  Informal though it may be, why do we still bother to “celebrate” something that most of the world doesn’t even truly know the origins of?  It seems there was a reference to it in Canterbury Tales back in 1392 that was badly translated and people were made to endure a full day of pranks and foolishness.

By the way kids, (notice I didn’t use that horrific BTW that has become so friggin’ popular.  That is a whole ‘nother rant) back in 527 AD Byzantine Emperor Justinian delcared that on April 2nd all Justin’s in the world should have homage paid and gifts of “gold, silver and precious things in great quantity.”  Check it out, that is tomorrow, I will just wait for all of the good things to roll in.

You see, that actually sound legit (almost) even though I made the whole thing up.  Much like April Fool’s Day.  My wife is currently preparing devious deceptions to taunt the kids with.  She loves it.  My kids love to play pranks and “get mom and dad”.  I don’t get it.  I have never really gotten it.  I don’t care to play pranks for the most part.  If I want to make someone look silly I can use words better than some silly prank.

So if you are into pranks, go for it.  Just know that there are some people out there who really don’t give the rear cavity of a rat about it.

On another note, Congrats again to Hansi for earning his degree from the Cantankerous Old Coots University.  he is now qualified to teach Cantankerosity and is an adjunct professor.  We will be featuring his first lesson next Tuesday, April 5.

And for the theme writing contest.  We have a clear winner this month with 4 votes to the 2 everything else got.  The topic that we will be writing on for the week of April 4th to April 8th is, (drumroll please) is, (no really, a drumroll here is appropriate) fine, with no drumroll the topic is Haiku.  We will just have to see what splendid and fascinating things that we can write about a simple Japanese Poem.

So that will be all today, go out and do something cantankerous.  Maybe just scream at someone who tries to pull a prank on you, or really fly off of the handle and make them cry.  That will be my goal, make a prankster cry.  Unfortunately, the only ones who will be around to pull pranks are the kids, and homework and chores make them cry anyway.  Good thing my new sink doesn’t have the separate sprayer anymore.

Thanks for reading, how are you going to get through today?

Justin

Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

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Bob is on the Blacklist! Don’t say what you think!

 Posted by at 11:48  Coot Smirk, Plain 'ol Cantankerous, principles, rants
Nov 262014
 
Blogging

Image via Wikipedia

Well folks I have a doozy for you today.  The main point is about commenting and the things that we are trained to do as bloggers that get ignored by some.  One of the first things I learned when I started blogging was to encourage conversation in the comments.  And to always respond to comments.  And to not argue in the comments which I always took to mean flat out arguing as well as name calling and profanity laden libel.

(Again with the pictures that have no bearing on the post whatsoever.  I dunno why it came up but it was a fish so I used it.)

Wednesday the 20th, here on the Coots site we had a great bump in traffic.   There seemed to be a couple of reasons for this that I could pinpoint right away.  First there were incoming links from some search engine stuff about classic cars and repair.

If you go back to Ralph’s post, Bob and I both commented about car repair in response to Ralph’s handyman service and amateur plumbing.  I thought that this must be a decent spike and began to craft a post about cars and repair and how they want you to go to the dealer for the repairs.  That post is still coming, I have some things to say about that.

But for today, back to commenting.  Bob sent me an email later talking about what he thought was the issue.  From Bob’s email:

Stirred some **** at a pioneer woman hater site (did you know there is a whole
damn cottage industry around hating Ree Drummond?) and logged in as
Bob@JuicyMaters. Well, after quite a bit of fun, some of the wimmin
there tracked me back to JM and found the link to COC. When they
went back to the hater site they spread the word that I wrote at COC
too…and today’s stats are the result. My stats yesterday were
double my second best ever day (I did have one post go semi-viral last
year…I don’t count it).

It’s probably over. A new post is up over there this afternoon and
all of yesterday’s **** is off the landing page and won’t get as much
attention…LOL. (the edits are mine)

I went back and read all of the comments from this site that I am not going to give a link to.  I was surprised to see the backlash against Bob and the only male perspective on this whole post.  Screw it here is the link: http://www.thepioneerwomansux.com/2011/04/monetizing-the-hate/.  They really attacked him and anything that they could find out from Google about him.

Now, I am standing up for my friend Bob and his place on this site.  That said, I will argue with Bob any day of the week of I don’t think he is right.  He will do the same.  But he will at least entertain your argument (read it, take it out for drinks and try to make it his) and then agree or stick with his point.   Therein lies the problem.  Bob has opinions.  Bob is knowledgeable.  Bob knows what he wants and more or less how to get there.  He has the detail map to Hell in his back pocket.  and he will share that opinion.  Argue if you must, but be prepared to be at least intelligent about it.

When the owner of the blog comes back with a profanity laden tirade against Bob and his opinions, and then blocks him from her site!  So many things that are just not “right” in the bloggers code.  And her cronies start in on little nit picking crap that doesn’t make a difference, but makes them feel like they got the upper hand.  Good for them, all of the “Yes Men and Women” are in line and ready to kiss the ass of the moderator, and the lone dissenter is exiled to the blogosphere…..

I probably would have let all of this go but then they started in on Cantankerous Old Coots.  Through the magic of Google, the following stream ensued:

Mary Beth says:

I just wanted to share one more thing about Boob, sorry Bob. I went over to his site and found a link to a site called Cantankerous Old Coots. I found the following:
http://cantankerousoldcoots.com/2011/04/18/report-from-the-obgyn-department/#more-4614

I can understand why he didn’t include his contribution to this site in his web site resume. But I do love a good case of irony. Wonder if he was on or off meds while he was typing all his crap.

  • poppy says:

    Hi, Mary Beth! Would you please give me a run down? I don’t want to click on anything of his. Thank you!

    • Just Another says:

      Hi Poppy!

      Oh yes I went there. That one isn’t his site, it looks like a collection of different contributers who write essays about being old coots and where they vent about how the world is on its way to hell in a Longaberger basket and anything else they don’t like.

      I know! Something like this has never been attempted before in the history of the entire internet. Please contain your shock!

      Bob’s essay was about how he had to go to the hospital for something something (not life threatening, sounds like he’s a regular there) and the first room available to him was in the ob/gyn wing in a bed with stirrups. He was having a crazy day I tell you! And get this — all this happened while he maintianed saintly endurance of ER shenanigans! and tornado warnings!

      And that’s as far in as I could stand to go.

What is this?  Attacking my blog just for 1 lousy article that Bob wrote while all drugged up on meds in the hospital?  (the post is not lousy Bob, I got  a kick out of it.)  They read one article and scanned a sidebar it seems and now are experts on this site.  And they have the nerve to complain that this site is not a new concept when the site they came from is nothing but a rip on site of something more popular?
At least we got a link to our site, which will probably be removed when this post hits.
Well I will tell you one thing, There will never be any argument like that on any of my sites.  I will debate people until I am blue in the face, but I am not going to start slandering them in my responses.  I am not going to block them unless they become a spam problem.  We are all in this blog community together right?? Maybe we should figure out how to act like we are.
Responses are open below, what do you think about all of this?

 

Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

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Lemons? Make lemonade…if the government let’s ya. 8.31 The Political Coot

 Posted by at 11:48  Bob's Politics, Coot Comedy, Plain 'ol Cantankerous, Podcast, rants, videos
Nov 262014
 

Out of work and need a little money? Have a kid you want to teach the principles of capitalism? Open a lemonade stand…right?
Not!

[powerpress]

 

Show notes:

00:50  Housekeeping

02:00  Where and when to find The Ploitical Coot, AKA “The Show”

02:30  Today’s show focus

03:35  Persoal history with lemonade stands

04:35  Government interferes with lemonade stands – the beginning

05:00  Examples

09:20  Government should protect one business from another?

11:25  What IS a lemonade stand?

12:30  The list begins…and a politician calls the cops

15:15  At least one good lesson learned

16:15  The list continues

18:00  More government protecting a business from another business

20:18  Good one!

22:15  Another good one!  You can’t comply even when you comply!

23:15  Getting old.  Government protecting established business from…a kid run lemonade stand

24:05  St Louis health inspector flat out lies…about kids

25:12  An unbelievable example

26:10  What we teach our children.  Hilarious, if not so sad

Sources:  FOXNews, The Agitator, and moFreedom.

Be sure to come back for more of The Political Coot next week.  Live on Tuesday’s at 10am eastern time (look up in navigaton bar for a link), or the live show recorded and up as a post by noon the next day.

 

Bob@HayleStorm Interactive

Bob comes to us with a skeptical attitude and a full cup of Cantankerousness. He also writes about homesteading and yurts over at JuicyMaters.com and rants about politics at Common-Sense-Conversation.com Most of the time, though, you'll find him at HayleStorm.net, cranking out great websites for clients OR writing tutorials teaching them to build their own sites.

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I know I’m late.

 Posted by at 11:48  Plain 'ol Cantankerous
Nov 262014
 

Well, I missed it.

bob X 4

bob X 4 (Photo credit: jacob earl)

I know how much our faithful readers count on getting regular doses of cantankerosity and until now I’ve been committed to living up to my responsibilities here at COC. Heaven knows, somebody has to do it. Justin may be the grand visionary and slave driver but lets just say that he goes AWOL from time to time. Between the kids and the kettle bells, it is hard to keep his attention. Then, of course, there is Bob. You wouldn’t think that life in the wilds of rural Georgia would be so complicated but I’m afraid that every so often Bob goes all nuanced on us. Lately I fear he has his sights on Oprah and her wide-ranging network of influence. Becoming a network mogul keeps his eyes on the prize and distracts him from the mundane production of content. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he is trying to displace Justin.

Anyway, since I’m the only Indian left actually producing content here at COC, it is a heavy responsibility and yesterday I just flat out wimped. I had a post half written when I ran out of steam. The vim and vinegar necessary to season the post just turned to watery gruel and I had to stop. It sits there still, filed away in my computer waiting for future inspiration. I feel bad about that and I hate to go Bob and Justin on our faithful readers but it is not my fault. I have been distracted lately and I feel I must confess my lack of focus and offer an excuse.

It’s not much

when compared to Justin’s kids or Bob’s frozen pipes and it perhaps reveals that the strong focused mind that has carried me through life to this point may be failing, perhaps even drifting into senility but the faithful readers here at Coots deserve nothing less than the truth. In four weeks, this Coot, along with my long suffering wife are leaving the country to visit Europe. It’s been 40 years since either of us set foot in Europe so we are excited and anxious at the same time and it is hard to focus on business as usual..

It’s not the trip itself

Plugs look different

Making the trip isn’t what raises the concerns. We are great tourists. It’s the details. What kinds of electrical adapters will we need to power our electronics? Do we need a voltage converter for our computers. Is my Skype account set up correctly to call home and will our ATM cards work on those foreign bank machines? Will I go crazy in a cramped coach airline seat on an 11 hour flight and will the sleeping pills my doctor gave me actually allow me to sleep on the flight. And thoseare just the things I can think of.

I know that nothing that I worry about will actually be a problem. That is the major life lesson of my seven decades so far. I have pretty much learned to stop worrying about problems I can foresee. What I really worry about is the ones that don’t occur to me now. I can’t possibly prepare for them but maybe if I continue to fuss about what I do know, I will stumble over something else that really requires my thinking.

Enough for now.

I’ll close up this posts for now and promise to do my best to keep the content flowing, maybe even from the continent itself but maybe you can help me. If there are world travelers reading this, there is one thing I ask from you. Share with me the things that you never anticipated during your travels that you should have thought about before you started. I still have four weeks to work on them. It just may be enough.

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Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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April Haiku- Effete Cantankerosity

 Posted by at 11:48  Plain 'ol Cantankerous
Nov 262014
 

I can’t begin to understand where Justin gets his ideas but it is even harder to understand what is going on in our readers minds- or lack thereof.  This month they demand that we write Haiku.  Go figure.

I could write an essay about haiku and prepare pointers for mastering the fine art or haiku writing but that might expose the fact that I don’t know crap about Japanese poetry.  So I’m just going to cut to the chaise today and write haiku for your appreciation.  Readers are going to have to read them and then decided whether or not to weep.    But lets up the ante here.  If I’ve got to write haiku, then it is only fair that readers should have to respond in haiku as well.  After all, I didn’t vote for haiku.  Don’t ever let anybody tell you that decisions don’t have consequences.  Then I ask you to vote for your favorite haiku.

Haiku Number 1

Snowy mountain tops

Spring flowers blooming riot

California

Haiku Number 2

Spring-rain soaked ground

Undermines peaceful homestead

Sweet gum tree attacks


Haiku Number 3

Boring, routine day

Take the road less traveled

Be cantankerous


Haiku Number 4

Kid cacophony

Stay at home dad conundrum

Sound the kettlebell!

So that my haiku contribution for today.  If you want to guess the inspiration for each poem, give it your best shot and remember to vote for your favorite and lets have those comments in the form of haiku.

What is your favorite of today's haiku?

  • Haiku 3 (67%, 2 Votes)
  • Haiku 4 (33%, 1 Votes)
  • Haiku 1 (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Haiku 2 (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Voters: 3

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Haiku-apps

Haiku-apps (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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