Au Cochonnet Marin

“A good marriage would be that of a blind woman with a deaf husband.” Michel de Montaigne

According to the National Health Institute, “Approximately one in three people in the United States between the ages of 65 and 74 has hearing loss, and nearly half of those older than 75 have difficulty hearing.”

I am alas, no exception to this state of affairs. My hearing, which used to be perfect (I could hear a mouse break wind) has lost some of its luster, and I sometimes struggle to grasp what is being said around me.

Hearing loss, like all deteriorating bodily functions, slowly manifest itself. You are not aware of it until somebody (usually your wife) starts  making snide remarks about it. Then comes a time when you earnestly have to start looking for a solution.

There are plenty of hearing aids on the market but they have 2 main shortcomings: they are  imperfect and they are obscenely expensive. They can cost between $1500.00 and $6000.00 a pair.

How could such tiny devices (smaller than my pinky fingers) be more expensive than the latest 75” television set? It is more than ridiculous, it is indecent.

I think that the answer is relatively simple. You can get by without a television set, but it is much more difficult to manage without being able to hear.

The merchants know that and they abuse their (unregulated) monopoly. Hearing aids, like any medical implements, ought to be affordable and covered by medical insurance. But (hello Big Pharma) they are not.

None are so deaf as those who can hear!

Viagra is covered by most Medicare and insurance plans; why couldn’t hearing aids be covered as well? It looks like our legislators have more appetite for sex than listening to their constituents.

But having a hearing impairment has some advantages. It allows you to use “selective hearing”. You have the option to hear or not to hear whatever is being said around you.

Although deaf and dumb, I totally agree with your ideas! Raymond Devos

You can also turn a deaf ear to your wife grumbling when she is on a “search and destroy” cleaning rampage.

Can you repeat what you just said dear?

Alain

“As long as there are annoying people in the world, I won’t run out of material.”~ Scott Adams

Thank God! As long as morons abound, I will always have something to write about. Today I will bitch again about unsavory, disreputable, unpleasant, undesirable, disagreeable,  PITAs.

Let’s face it, some people are a Pain In The Arse. You will have to excuse me, but I cannot think of a better way to describe them. I have written about this subject many times, but numbskulls always force me to go back to this topic.

PITAs are not natives of any particular country; I think that they could possibly be genetically modified. Like stinging nettles, they grow everywhere and will cause rashes when they come in close contact with you.

In France, especially in the political arena, they are known as “emmerdeurs”. They talk and meddle constantly, sowing discord anywhere they go. Like bedbugs, they are all over and are very difficult to exterminate dispose of. The best way to avoid problems, is to stay away from them.

In the old days, lepers were forced to ring a bell to warn people of their approach. It was not high-tech but it worked. This could also work well with PITA’s. At the sound of the bell, you would dive for cover…

I always thought that you could find salvation in reading. And if you read, you probably came across this thought:

 It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you’re a fool than open it and remove all doubt. Mark Twain

 So when you stumble on a blabbering PITA, you are probably talking to a poorly educated person who tries to mask his ignorance with a flurry of words.

“Scientists say the universe is made of protons neutrons and electrons. They forgot to mention morons.”

Life would be so much easier if you could mark some people as spam… and invest in a little app that would move them instantly to the trash bin.

Am I being too harsh? Je ne crois pas!

PITAs, for your own good,  keep a lid on it. Pleeaase!

Alain

“In photography, you’ve got to be quick, quick, quick, quick. Like an animal with a prey.” Henri Cartier-Bresson

This why I often shoot in burst mode, with several snapshots taken in quick succession.

Let me elaborate a little. As you know, I have been a long-time shutterbug. Over the years, despite my best efforts to hold back, I have accumulated over 25,000 pictures.
Google (my landlord) is suddenly saying “Hey dude, you are occupying a lot of space… you will now have to pay us $9.99 per month to continue storing your junk.”
Ten bucks are not much, but it adds to all the little expenses that I incur every month to keep my blog going…

So, I decided to cull my flock… a tough decision.
All my pictures are my babies, and it is difficult to discard any of them. When it is time to choose, I agonize over each picture weighing the pros and the cons of my decision.

When I look at a snapshot, I ask myself:
Is this picture properly focused? To be a keeper, it must be.
Does it show emotion? It will get an extra point for a frown or a smile…
Is it an action shot? Difficult to discard.
Do I personally know this person? Does he/she look reasonably good on this shot? I won’t keep a picture of anybody caught in an embarrassing posture.
How many similar pictures do I have? Since I usually shoot by bursts, there could be six or seven shots of the same subject.

Once you delete a picture, it is gone forever. It becomes a piece of junk silently orbiting in space. But invariably, the minute you delete a picture, you want it back. It is like ditching a girlfriend.
Go, I never want to see you again!
Ten minutes later you are in the street crying your eyes out.
Breaking up (and deleting pictures) is hard to do.

But after steeling myself I managed to remove close to 1000 pictures from my folders. No small accomplishment my friends. My computer is now telling me that I went down from over 25,000 to 23,961 photographs.

I will (for the time being) stop harassing my captives, but if my storage space become overcrowded, I will have to restart (with the blessing of the Administration) my raids again. Sorry.

Don’t worry, I have plenty of pictures of each of you.

Alain