That’s me, delivering your Substack things on schedule, rain or shine! (Subscriber update today around 10:30.) Good thing too, since it’s been rainy again. Also shiny. I haven’t had to use the sprinkler system once this summer. I’ve paid twice to have it repaired, but I haven’t used it. And now I have to pay someone to blow it out. Even with all the rain, there are spots of the lawn that look a bit done with it all - the portions that get the most sun, and have traditionally struggled to give me the verdant carpet I so rightly deserve. It makes no sense to mow it - insult to injury, really. It’s like a guy who's been run over by a car six times. Oh sure back up and have another run at it, I’m good.
At the moment I’m in the gazebo, with a light pattering on the metal roof. Sounds like a British officer who was lost at the Somme: Leight Pattering. I can see him now, looking off to the side in his portrait before he went away, a note of duty and quiet strength. His father didn’t think he had it in him, but he volunteered along with the rest of his lads when the call came. His brother, S. Theodore (Teddy) Pattering, or good old Steady Pats, as the lads called him, went in a year later, and all that came back was the top of his ink pen, made of ivory, a gift on his 17th birthday. It was buried in a small box in the village church cemetery, next to his mother, which caused a bit of a ruckus as she was still alive.
They had a sister, Constant Pattering, and she would go on to marry a clerk named Innople; they had three sons, all of whom were lost during the Second World War, but only for an afternoon, as it turned out they were playing a game in the attic and had fallen asleep.
Seen at the office the other day:
I have an instinctive loathing for office electronics. I hate the keyboards and I hated the phones. Once, of course, the phone made you feel important - all those buttons! All those programmable options! Soon it just becomes an instrument of grim obligation. They're all going away - depending on the office, I suppose. I'm sure some places will still have them. But the days of the office soundtrack burbling with chirps and warbling sibilant rings is on the way out, right?
Will we miss it? Will filmmakers in the future pin a movie's era to a specific time by filling the audio background with phone sounds?
Now, the end of the month round-up of Web Detritus, the junk that ruins the internet for everyone.
They did not because this didn't happen. It is a story.
Excerpt:
When they eventually entered the aircraft, it had been a haunting sight. Everything was frozen in time, but as part of the crew explored, the other part of the group noticed something truly unsettling. They were confident that this couldn’t be a trick of the light! They knew they had to warn Dr. Landon and their other colleagues! They had to escape!
It's one thing to pass off this AI dreck, but it doesn't even provide an ending to the story. Everyone involved should be red with shame.
None of the songs were banned and all can be played again.
"The United Airlines' Boeing plane, which had its course plotted for Fort Myers, Florida, had one of its engines explode into flames, which forced it to make an emergency landing."
The story comes from the Jerusalem Post, and is dated MARCH 9, 2024. So we're stretching the definition of "Breaking News." Intentionally, of course, because they are liars and pirates.
I see a lot of these:
Of course, they're not practically free at all. It's not a story. It goes to a list of search results.
Haven't we seen this before?
Yes, it's Digimediavie again with the Titanic click-bait, and yes AGAIN, weeks later, it still goes to a scam site that says your site has been compromised and you need to call this number now.
Weeks, and the ad provider just lets it sit there.
I’m trying to find my house, and I can’t. I’m in a hilly neighborhood in Minneapolis - it’s the Lowry neighborhood - but every turn is wrong, and no street seems familiar. I kept trying to find it on my phone, but somehow it had reset and was full of anime wallpapers and different accounts, and I couldn’t even type in my address to the map. I stopped at one point and got out a cigar tin, only to discover it was full of dog kibble.
As I stared at that, wondering how that happened, a rich man with an entourage strolled down the sidewalk, followed by some media folk; he looked like a bad rich guy in a 90s comedy movie.
He said “remember, if you touch my toys, I’ll kill you.” One of his aides told him to “lighten up.” There were construction workers in the alleyway, and two of them placed some objects at the entrance to the street, whereupon the rich guy started calling out their supervisor, asking him if they were going to let these guys do that.
Tiny, with that keen detective intuition:
John, the boss, is short of money. There's a story there, and I know it has to do with his wife. He doesn't look like the gambling type.
Last year I cut out the tunes, but heck, why not bring them back. We'll be counting down the bottom 50 songs as listed by Whitburn. It'll be fun! Stuff you've never heard. A grab-bag of styles.
Maxine Brown:
Ashford and Simpson started out as her back-up singers.
In 1969, Brown left Wand Records for Commonwealth United, where she recorded two singles, the first "We'll Cry Together" reached No. 10 in the Billboard R&B chart and also made the lower reaches of the Hot 100. A spell with Avco Records followed, but her later recordings generally met with little commercial success.
And that's it for her Wikipedia page has no personal information. If you want a trip back in time, archive.org has her website. It doesn't work very well but you get the idea.
There. Week's done. See you Monday - but not for much. Mostly just a chat space, since it's a Holiday.
