Ornoth

MEMORABILIA: CAPITALIZATION MATTERS!

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 22:19:17 GMT

LOVE IT OR HATE IT, THE CAPS LOCK KEY IS A THING. AND IT’S DEFINITELY ONE OF MY THINGS! OR MAYBE ABOUT A HUNDRED OF MY THINGS…

THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO GET FULLY CHEESED OFF AT THE CAPS LOCK KEY, NESTLED NEATLY ON THEIR KEYBOARD’S HOME ROW BETWEEN THE TAB AND SHIFT KEYS.

THERE ARE ORGANIZATIONS DEVOTED TO THE KEY’S ERADICATION. GOOGLE EVEN BANNED IT FROM THEIR LINE OF CHROMEBOOK LAPTOPS, REPLACING THAT SPACE WITH (WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU EXPECT FROM, GOOGLE?) A SEARCH BUTTON.

BUT EVERY DISPUTE HAS TWO SIDES, AS SHOWN BY A SIMPLE GOOGLE SEARCH FOR “TURN CHROMEBOOK CAPS LOCK ON”, WHICH RETURNS 114,000 RESULTS.

TO ME, THE ANGER TOWARD THE CAPS LOCK IS REMINISCENT OF THE HATRED DIRECTED TOWARD THAT OTHER ICON OF EARLY PERSONAL COMPUTING: THE COMIC SANS TYPEFACE.

BUT THAT WASN’T ALWAYS THE CASE. BACK IN MY CONSULTING DAYS, EVERY NEW CLIENT PROJECT MEANT SETTING UP A NEW LAPTOP, AND THE FIRST THING I DID WAS REMOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEYCAP. AT THE TIME, HATING ON THE CAPS LOCK KEY WAS JUST ONE OF MY PERFORMATIVE WAYS OF GETTING ATTENTION.

BUT SINCE THOSE MACHINES WENT BACK TO THE CLIENT AT THE END OF EACH PROJECT, I HAD TO HANG ONTO THAT KEYCAP, PUTTING IT BACK IN PLACE WHEN THE LAPTOP WAS RETURNED TO THE CLIENT.

AROUND THAT TIME I ALSO USED TO HANG OUT IN THE I.T. SUPPORT OFFICE, AND ONE DAY SPIED THEIR BOX OF BROKEN KEYBOARDS. HAVING ALREADY ESTABLISHED THE HABIT OF POCKETING AND SAVING CAPS LOCK KEYCAPS, I STARTED LIFTING THEM FROM DEAD KEYBOARDS, FROM MY OWN HOME COMPUTERS, AND ANYWHERE ELSE I COULD REASONABLY GET AWAY WITH IT.

AND SO, A COLLECTION WAS BORN.

SINCE I STOPPED WORKING, I NO LONGER GET AS MANY OPPORTUNITIES TO GROW MY CAPS LOCK COLLECTION.

BUT PERHAPS MORE IMPORTANTLY, MY QUIET HOME LIFE DOESN’T NEED THE IDIOSYNCRATIC, PERFORMATIVE BEHAVIOR THAT I RELIED UPON FOR ATTENTION BACK WHEN I WAS WORKING DIRECTLY WITH OTHER PEOPLE.

IN FACT, AS I TYPE THIS POST, THERE ARE CAPS LOCK KEYCAPS STILL FIRMLY AFFIXED TO MY BOTH MY MACBOOK AND MY WIRELESS MECHANICAL KEYBOARD, WHERE THEY’RE LIKELY TO STAY…

… UNTIL I’M DONE WITH THOSE DEVICES, OF COURSE! ONCE THEY’RE NO LONGER BEING USED, THEIR CAPS LOCK KEYCAPS WILL JOIN THE SCORES OF OTHERS HOUSED IN MY PERMANENT COLLECTION.

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24 Years of HUI-VUI!

Sun, 16 Feb 2025 00:08:30 GMT

The time has come – the Walrus said – to talk of many things… Specifically, my underwear.

I am, of course, referring to Ornoth’s well-documented Hexannual Universal Internal Vernal Underwear Interval (abbr. HUI-VUI, not VUI-HUI), wherein our protagonist spontaneously does an in toto purge of his undergarment inventory every six years, around the end of February.

Although this cyclical behavior is known to go back at least as far as 2001, it wasn’t discovered and documented until 2013, when it received its official nomenclature. Six years hence, science confirmed this theory when the subsequent purge took place in March 2019.

In that illuminating initial 2013 research paper, a prediction was made that reprises of the HUI-VUI phenomenon would transpire again in early 2019, 2025, and beyond. With the 24th anniversary of its first documented observation fast approaching, this had obvious implications for expectant pantspotters everywhere.

Happily, our on-location Brief Patrol has verified today’s arrival of our long-expected bundle of joy. And there was – as they say – much rejoicing.

The HUI-VUI’s next predicted episode will occur at the end of February, 2031. Be there, or be squarepants! 🙋‍♂️

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Memorabilia: The Satanic Bible

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 15:05:59 GMT

I had this entry all ready to go last week, but I couldn’t help but defer it when I saw that Friday the Thirteenth was coming. So now that it’s here…

Imagine this scenario: you’re the parent of a child in seventh grade. In the evening, you casually ask them how school went, and are told that English class had featured some students doing book reports. Did any of them stand out as particularly interesting? Well, one kid gave a ten-minute presentation on a book called “The Satanic Bible” by this guy Anton Szandor LaVey, the founder of The Church of Satan…

Yeah, that was me at thirteen years of age. The same year that Mrs. Bernier read “The Hobbit” and “A Wrinkle in Time” to our English class, I was getting my kicks by introducing my impressionable prepubescent peer group to LaVeyan Satanism.

This was suburban Maine in 1976, so to this day, I’m still surprised that there were no repercussions… at least none known to me.

I clearly remember hanging out in Mr. Paperback on my way home from school one day, looking for anything that piqued my curiosity. And there’s not much that’d capture a twelve year old boy’s attention faster than a black book titled “The Satanic Bible”, with the inverted pentagram of Baphomet on the front and back cover, with the latter serving as background for a crimson portrait of its grim-looking, goateed, bald author with a piercing gaze. I hope my grammar school classmates enjoyed my book report!

The book – along with LaVey’s followup piece, “The Satanic Rituals” – continued to provide a unique conversation piece that followed me through high school, college, career, all the way to the present day. And it paved the way for several other infamous occult acquisitions, including Robert W. Chambers’ “The King in Yellow”, Aleister Crowley’s “The Book of Lies”, Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Monster of the Prophesy”, and the Simon “Necronomicon”.

As for our dear Anton, he provided a lasting final connection with me by passing away on my birthday.

Cue the “Twilight Zone” theme…

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Memorabilia: The Black Smurf

Fri, 29 Nov 2024 17:09:48 GMT

Imagine a Smurf. Little blue guys in white pants and cap singing “La la, la-la la la…”

Now imagine a disease-infected Smurf with black skin, clenched fists, and angry red eyes, whose only actions are hopping around, shouting “Gnap!”, and biting other Smurfs on the ass (which then turns the victim into another Black Smurf).

That was actually the premise for a 1963 comic by the Smurfs’ creator, Peyo. In it, all the Smurfs wound up turning into Black Smurfs – even Papa Smurf, who was working on an antidote – but the world is saved when the Black Smurfs cause Papa Smurf’s lab to explode, scattering his in-progress antidote into the air, where it does its job of resetting the plot.

That story was also adapted in the 1981 Hanna-Barbera Smurfs cartoon, although they chose to depict the infected Smurfs as purple rather than black. Perhaps appropriately, the episode debuted on Halloween of that year.

I found this rare collectible Black Smurf figurine in 1982 in a tourist gift shop called The Smiling Cow in Camden, Maine, while on a date with my first girlfriend, Jean. I didn’t know its background at that time, but the uncharacteristically angry and Black Smurf figure (literally?) screamed to be purchased. It’s been a conversation piece and highlight of my memorabilia box ever since.

I’m pretty sure that the Black Smurf figurine was quickly recalled, or at least discontinued, making it something of a rarity and a collectible. Pretty interesting, if more than a little bit dubious.

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Lordy Lordy!

Sun, 23 Jun 2024 21:46:18 GMT

If identity politics is your jam, you may find this post in poor taste. I’m sorry. I’m not here to criticize how you or anyone lives their life. But if you’re incapable of finding any humor in the situation, this probably isn’t suitable for you. And I admit that my stale humor’s probably ten years out of date. But having said that…

O.L. Reigns!

I find it interesting that folks have taken identity politics to the point where they are able to choose to alter something as objectively verifiable as their genetic race or sex and impose respect of that preference upon the population at large. Yes, I know I’m conflating sex and gender; it’s hard not to, given that most people present them as the same.

What’s interesting to me here isn’t the interplay of race/gender/sex and society, but the ability of an individual to override an attribute that is as seemingly inherent and immutable as one’s chromosomes: an attribute determined not by social convention but by the laws of nature. I’m not saying it’s wrong to do so; just that it’s an interesting development.

Which becomes the springboard for my own take on the matter. If an individual is allowed to alter something as seemingly fixed and measurable as their race or sex – and enforce that preference – then it should be considerably easier for an individual to change an attribute that’s an entirely man-made social construct. For example, our legal and corporate systems give full sanction when people change their names, or spouses, or families.

In that spirit, I’d like to announce a change in my own public identity. I am pleased to inform you that I now identify as nobility, rather than one of the common folk. You shall henceforth address us as “Lord Ornoth”.

This should be quite easy for you to adapt to. After all, we are merely taking a different place within an entirely man-made social convention: that of socioeconomic class.

And according to public discourse, it’s a minuscule step to go from a hetero middle class white male Boomer to traditional titled nobility. It’s hardly any change at all! Nowhere near the magnitude of changing something inborn such as one’s race or gender.

Your obedience shall please us. With kindest regards,

Lord Ornoth

P.S. Oh and one final thing you might want to be aware of: I also now identify as a little teapot.

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Duo Me

Thu, 09 Jun 2022 22:33:39 GMT

With the help of the Duolingo app, I’ve been learning Japanese since December. Inspired by my example, Inna began refreshing her Hebrew in March.

So we’ve had a little time to hear one another’s practice as well as compare notes on what we’re being taught. And the results are more than a little bit interesting.

To amuse my captain, I’ve included a few screen shots of the everyday phrases we’re learning. Let’s start with my newly-acquired Japanese language skills:

And now let’s compare my Japanese phrases to the vocabulary that Inna is picking up in Hebrew:

I’m sure no further elaboration is necessary.

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