Just Fred wrote:

(The Borowitz Report)—

One day after the Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity blamed him for the historic plunge in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, former President Barack Obama agreed to stop making stocks tumble.

“Sean Hannity has accused me of making the stock market go down,” Obama told reporters on Tuesday morning. “All I have to say is, ‘Guilty as charged.’ ”

A visibly chastened Obama said that, at first, he thought that he had gotten away with making the stock market crash, but when he saw Hannity blame him on Fox, “I knew I had been busted.”

Obama offered scant explanation for why he had made stocks crash on Monday. “I guess since leaving the White House I haven’t really found enough ways to fill my time, so tanking the stock market seemed like something to do,” he said. “But I know that’s not a good excuse. The fact is, I caused a lot of folks a lot of pain yesterday, and for that I am very, very sorry.”

He said that he would “get to work right away” to return stocks to their previously lofty levels. “I made the stock market go down, and, darn it, I can make it go up again,” he said.

I've said it many times...the man has style. 

03/02/2018

 The mood is excited.

 I'm writing this just to clear my head a little. The mood is highly elevated because today is game day. I've spent the last couple of weeks developing enough history, sociology, and political structure to serve as a platform for the storied.

 I'm thrilled about the first adventure.

 It's been occupying a great deal of space in my mind but it's the kind of space I enjoy using. The creative engine was difficult to get started again but it's moving now.

 I've always found it far easier to come up with story ideas if I'm writing them for a person or people as opposed to a standard of publication. The possibilities are unlimited since I don't have to concern myself with the constraints involved in putting a book out there for publication.

 Yes, it's the writer's work...but it's also the publisher's work.

 In this case, I get to do anything I can logically...or at least magically, define.

 I've found that the player's have a flair for creativity and a sense of the dramatic. I read over back stories and found it very easy to begin weaving those threads into their ongoing narrative.

 The only deadline I have is game day and game day is something I look forward to. My publishing space consists of the limits of the imaginations of seven or more other people. The length of the story will depend on the characters, not the writer.

 I have to say, this is an approach to writing I'd never considered before and I'm looking forward to running with it.

 Anyway, short entry is all I'm going to get out of this today...way to distracted.

 I'm just going to step away from the world for a few hours.

 Please leave a message at the beep.

 Thanks for listening

Thanks.

It's been a thrilling, breath-taking few weeks.

I found exactly what I was looking for...people who are just as addicted to games as I am.  The board game meetings are terrific too!

All those strangers who are just as strange as I am.

01/11/2018 

The mood is erratic.

 There's actually a reason for the erratic. For some reason I've been awake for around thirty-five hours. I took the time to slowly...very slowly...ponder the possible reasons for the insomnia attack.

 I'm not sleep-walking but I did fall asleep standing up twice already.

 The last time something like this happened I was in the middle of trying to pee at my brother's house and face-planted into a shelf above the toilet. The shelf, of course, was jam-packed with breakable objects.

 My brother's paramour was not happy in the least.

 That time was following a massive upheaval in my life wherein I moved to another state, changed jobs, and spent every free moment with my pops in a nursing home. I was right there with him at the moment he drew his last breath.

 So, naturally, I was far too agitated to sleep...ever.

 This isn't like that. Nothing bad is happening. Quite the contrary, in fact. I'm going out in the world and meeting groups of complete strangers without one or more Wendy's acting as my social anchor. They acted as the one solid relationship in rooms full of strangers.

 But I'm thinking that's not the point and I'm also thinking there may not have been one. It's that kind of tired.

 The Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) game was a mixed success.

 I enjoyed being there but it was waaaaaaay more crowded than I'd anticipated. I was expecting a group of maybe a dozen, tops. There was a dozen. And one more dozen.

 The gaming group meets in the back of strip-mall store called Comic Store West...in East York. I didn't ask.

 The people who run the store appear to be hosting the event but not participating so there's a dynamic to this process I'm not seeing yet. The event was at the back of the store and had six conference tables filled along with this sort of chest-height cabinet.



 There were five players and one dungeon master (DM). But there were only four chairs. And they were all occupied. So I was sitting on

01/10/2018

 The mood is good.

 I had lunch with my former pod-partner Joan Wade. We went to a new place on George Street called The Handsome Cab. Joan picked up the tab as a belated birthday present which is good because I'm still trying to get used to being paid once a month.

 I wouldn't recommend The Handsome Cab. At least not for the food.

 Joan got something with chicken, looked like a little pizza. Joan said the chicken was dry. I ordered something they called Wellington burgers of some sort.

 If you're not familiar with it, there is a dish called Beef Wellington which consists of wrapping a grilled steak in dough with a flaky texture and baked. What I received were three burgers Joan called Sliders. I've heard the term but never in this context.

 The first definition of Slider I learned on active duty referred to things sliding in and sliding out. Not what you'd call lunch conversation material.

 The “Wellingtons” I received tasted like a burger made with meatloaf. Now, I like meatloaf sammiches, I just don't like to be ambushed by a meatloaf and I like the meatloaf cold.

 It was the weirdest thing. We were there for nearly an hour and, apart from a man in a wheelchair, not a single person came in for lunch. Or for any other reason.

 So, the food was blah and the service sucked. As one PM approached, Joan began to get more and more nervous. We were the only two diners in the entire restaurant and I had to go back to the kitchen and yell through the doors asking if anyone had seen our waiter.

 I'm not sure what Joan tipped and I didn't ask but if it was a pittance, he earned it.

 The game night was fun.

 I was in a room full of social misfits. I'm home! Last night was tabletop games. They're what I called Bookcase Games because they come in thick, rectangular boxes that fit neatly on a book case.

 When I walked in, there were two guys setting up what looked like a Star Wars battle complete with miniature X-Wings and TIE fighters, v