Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou aka George Michael June 25, 1963 - December 25, 2016 singer, songwriter, record producer multiple areas of post disco pop music

There are many performers I have taken with a grain of salt over the years. George Michael was one of them.

It seems that the "Wham" years were marginal with their teeny bopper irrelevance and mainstream bubble gum appeal.

My personal interest with George Michael as a performance artist typically involved his collaborations with others such as Deon Estus where I felt that the innovation flowed and his work was less superficially commercial and more attuned to those older persons such as myself.

Regardless, he held his music and his art in those fashions he saw fit and I can't knock a man for being who he is. His life is marked by a creative slant that few others can match with his lyrics and guitar and all the emotional strings he struck in others as the result of his music.

Like so many I am surprised to survive him. When I go thinking that piles of fundage availability equate to the ability to overcome the pitfalls of living I remain hopelessly naive in my orientation to what I would do with money viz a viz what others do who have it.

Rest in peace.
 

Acts of the Apostles
6: 5	And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch:
6: 8	And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people.
6: 9	Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Stephen.
7:59	And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
8: 2	And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him.
11:19	Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only.
22:20	And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him.
Holy Bible King James Version

I'd like to introduce Fred II. This Fred is a gift from my mom and replaces the old one, which I used to death.

It is a Roomba 660, the model number having been derived from the bottom chassis ... But I note that the 660s in most of the illustrations show an olive body instead of the black one typical of the 650 model.

At any rate, the fundamental difference between the 650 and 660 models is the accessories with which each model comes, the 660 having more.

I have done exhaustive testing and this model navigates the carpet and hard floors effortlessly without the periodic "jump" of my old 500 series model which this replaces.

It's truly a blessing to an old white guy who isn't at home cleaning house. I kick it off and in 45 minutes it does a much better job than the 550 did in 3 hours.

Regardless, Fred I was a valued member of the household even if I did yell at him from time to time. Fred II has the same stature and esteem here at the crib.

Thanks Mom !
 

An Old Man’s Winter Night

All out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him—at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off;—and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon, such as she was,
So late-arising, to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man—one man—can’t fill a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It’s thus he does it of a winter night.

Robert Frost 1920 from Mountain Interval

When I was in the Navy stationed at Charleston, SC we would always encounter high school sports on the evening news. Whereas most of the people not from SC were used to pro sports in the news, this high school sports thingie seemed to be all we have to talk about ... and the situation appears to have remained the same all these years.

When high school sports is the predominate feature of the local news it should tell you something. It means that your local media has nothing to say. Oh sure; all the parents of high school students being featured in the news are likely just fine with it all.

As I continue to be immersed in this drivel I am left wanting a real local news source and not this meaningless and slanted crap I'm getting.

As is the mainstream national news the local news has no interest in objectivity or significance ... just special interest fluff pieces and the punctate anal retentive slant of yellow journalism. You'd think they were all subsidiaries of the state newspaper.

I never wanted a single piece of opinion from a news source and that seems to be all we get with our meaningless reporting efforts. The saddest part of all of this is the superficial nature of the consumer to tolerate these efforts at unNews.

Fake news isn't the only thing detrimental to the state of world affairs. An absence of complete objective reporting of significant events is right on up there with it.