time

A Change of Lifestyle Thanks to a Computer Hack

As far as I know, I clicked on a link to a site about Optical Illusions.

That froze my computer with a screen-sized warning, telling me that I had been hacked, and infected with a Trojan Horse Virus. The warning purported to be from Microsoft, and gave a phone number to call. There was no other avenue to follow, nothing to click on. I was also warned not to turn off the computer. But, with nothing else to do, I turned off the computer.

Two or three minutes later I turned the computer back on and the frozen screen was still there. Since I was not clicking anything on the screen (being unable to do so anyway), I called the number. I have since found out that 805 phone numbers are a favorite of scams.

At any rate, the situation on the other end of the call sounded exactly like the call centers which phone me for the usual scams. A jumble of background noises and voices that sound as if the people are in a huge warehouse. I questioned the authenticity of the situation with the speaker immediately. The proof he offered was for me to hang up and he would call right back. Which, of course, proved nothing.

So, after a couple of minutes of this, I hung up and I turned off the computer. I phoned my computer shop. I was told I was hacked and to bring in the machine.

And thus, three days later, I have a cleansed machine, information about hacks I did not know, and the news that even my computer expert has been hacked (once by going to a story in The Guardian Newspaper). He also told me that had I waited a day, the screen would have unfrozen on its own, but I would not know if something had been downloaded into my computer.

So, here I am, with everything seemingly fine.

But, in those three days with no internet access, I started reading novels again. I picked out two (yes, this is true) from one of those small “Free Library” box/houses where folk can drop off books they have read, and exchange – all free. I took a JohnleCarré novel (one of my favorite writers) which I probably read twenty years ago [Absolute Friends] and a Joanna Trollope novel, an author I have wanted to read for twenty years [Other People’s Children].

I have read 15 pages a day, of each one, since. I will continue after I post this.

Gotta say, it feels good to be back reading novels. And I will restrict my roaming time in the internet.

03/18/2022 0

22 02 2022

Two be or not two be

22 02 2022

Or, if you want to wait closer to the witching hour.

22:22 22 02 2022

02/22/2022 0

A Novel That Took Five Years To Write

THERE WAS A TIME, OH PILGRIM, WHEN THE STONES WERE NOT SO SMOOTH

THE END

07 01 2022

595 pp. 174,838 words

A Celebration Of Christmas Day With Mincemeat On Partridge Island

The last thing

I anticipated
On Christmas Day was
A mincemeat pie fight.
But,
Thanks to Sister Darling of the
Rarefied Church of the World (reformed),
One took place.

As it is,
I already thank her
For my soul’s salvation,
And

My sanity.

Paw,
My cat/kitten
Black as a currant
With one white mitten
Took part in this
Food festivity.
Took part heartily, indeed.

Nibbling shreds of venison
While assiduously
Licking suet from his fur
Well into the sunset.

Such Christmas merriment
Was enough
To make me
Hoist the signal flag,
On my Lighthouse dock,
To indicate
No pick-up was needed
On the fishing fleet’s return.

Sister Darling produced,

An apple pie
From her hamper
For this unexpected

Second supper.
Paw took no
Interest in it
At all.

I’m The Lighthouse Poet Laureate of Partridge Island /1821 – 2021 / A lot of stuff have I seen / A lot of stuff to report}
DE BA. UEL

12/25/2021 0

The End Of Summer Is Not A Bummer When The First Of Fall Is A Comer

Right on the dot
Of a clock.

The 20th minute
Post meridiem

Zap boom bah
Summer is over.

Then wait for a minute
And Autumn begins.

I went up the
Circular staircase
Of my lighthouse,
And leaned against
The railing
On that exact minute,
To watch whatever
Hand of time
Would shuffle the deck.

I do believe
The sunlight
Did flicker.

I’m The Lighthouse Poet Laureate of Partridge Island /1821 – 2021 / A lot of stuff have I seen / A lot of stuff to report}

DE BA. UEL

09/22/2021 0

Razzle Dazzle, Oh Mighty Monarch of the Sky

{I’m The Lighthouse

Poet Laureate of Partridge Island

1821 – 2021

A lot of stuff have I seen

A lot of stuff to report}

I opened the door

At the bottom of

My spiral staircase

Twisting

Beside the wall

Just white-washed

In the Spring.

And

Oh! And!!

Came out into

A sea

A forest

A cacophony

Of orange

And black

And white-spotted

Brilliant-winged

MONARCH butterflies.

They covered the edifice

From Light

To Entrance steps,

Soaking up

The heat

Of the stones.

I grabbed my trusty

Bum-worn

Wooden chair

And moved it

Distant enough

To watch the

Whole structure at once.

I’m still sitting.

~ DE BA, UEL.

08/11/2021 0

Space & The Universe Are Going Around In Circles

motion-map

There is a new map of the Universe, created after ten or more years and looking past numbers that are in the billions. There are also pretty colours.

I appreciate space speculations, and accept that the folk who come up with them, plus the knowledge and machines they use, make their pronouncements and suppositions more relevent than my musings. But I haven’t been proved wrong yet.

This excerpt from one of my short stories keeps being very popular, so maybe I have achieved an answer by having no real answer. Sounds likle the Universe to me. I’m always glad and willing to add to knowledge about the unknown.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Circles are the answer.

“Just look at any circle and you’ll see what I mean. Of course, no one else is to know about the circles. They must be very stupid if they can’t see something so obvious.

“Yet, you get hints, don’t you – all the time out there. And in your own life – the way things happen so you never get anywhere. Never change.

“The earth, of course, and the sun – well, that’s something you can see. Either way you look at it, the one goes around the other in a big circle that takes in the whole sky. And the earth and the sun and the moon are round – all circles in their own right. So you have circles which are going around in circles, if you get my meaning.

“And if you look further – reach out into the universe as far as you can go – they tell us that everything is going around everything else. Smaller circles and elongated circles which take in such large distances that numbers become forgotten.

“Now, this means that everything, eventually, comes back upon itself. The beginning is really the end. That’s what most people would think – and that’s where they make their mistake.

“You see, things don’t start by beginning – they start by ending. It’s the end which comes first in a circle, so, instead of going back to where it started, it comes back to its end.

“That explains it.”

(image) http://public.media.smithsonianmag.com/legacy_blog/motion-map.jpg

07/21/2020 0

Like An Ice Moon Of Jupiter

callistoplus_gal

He is not a man for grand gestures.

The gift came as a surprise, the kiss a shock. He was embarrassed by the first and aroused by the second. Time, always a constant worry – not the futile minutes, hours, days, the whirlwind passage of months, but the disappearance of the now into the past -had again taken a bite out of his life before he had realized it was gone.

“I thought you would like it.” she said, a gift somehow made more important because it was not planned, an obvious display of spontaneity. A chance meeting in a store on a Saturday afternoon. “I’m leaving soon, in two weeks I’ll be in France.” Eyes taking in his every reaction, her voice tinged with reproach. “Do you like it?”

And of course he did, but there were too many memories laced with half smiles jamming into his head, not painful in themselves but adding now to finality. The party where he met her, surely that was just last week, at the most a month ago. Surely it did not stretch back to soft Autumn nights.

“Well, here,” she writes something. “It’s for you, you know.”

A look of puzzlement crosses her face as the gift changes hands, the too brief touch of her fingers. he clutches it carefully, looks back to her eyes and imagines he sees a twinge of that nonexistent past. or does she only reflect what is in his own face?

And then the kiss. So unexpected that he almost jumps back.

The touch of lips and warm breath, the smell of fresh, soft hair against his cheek. His own mouth open in surprise, her farewell brush of lips turned partially into passion. And then she is out the door, onto the street, and he is standing by a counter feeling very old, his heart an icy moon of Jupiter.

Ah, Christiane. Salut.

(image) https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/9805/callistoplus_gal.jpg

05/27/2020 0