2026/01/25

Sunday Task Complete

Finally replaced a 'temporary' solution for hanging the dog leashes with my favorite pugilistic drunk octopus hooks. Which meant I needed a sea shanty to celebrate.

🎵 “Eight Arms Nailed to Wood” 🎵

Verse 1
There’s a thing on the wall where the lanterns rot,
Eight bent arms round a rusted knot,
One dead eye and the other burns,
Like it’s drowned men twice and never learns.

Chorus (Low, Slow, Crew Growl)
🎶 Ho… hang yer coat, if ye dare…
🎶 Ho… hang yer coat, if ye dare…
Eight arms twitch in the tavern air,
Ho… hang yer coat, if ye dare…

Verse 2
It don’t blink, it don’t sleep, it just waits,
Like a tide that remembers your mistakes,
Smells of brine and barroom sin,
Like it fought the sea — and almost won.

Chorus

🎶 Ho… hang yer coat, if ye dare…
🎶 Ho… hang yer coat, if ye dare…
Eight arms twitch in the tavern air,
Ho… hang yer coat, if ye dare…

Verse 3
They say it crawled from a shipwrecked curse,
Dragged up screaming in a sailor’s hearse,
Now it guards the coats of the lost and damned,
With iron limbs and a drunkard’s hand.

Bridge (Whispered, then rising)
It boxed the tide and it strangled fate,
Lost three arms to the harbor gate,
Now nailed in place but still wants war,
That wall-born beast with a thirst for more.

Final Chorus (Full Crew, Heavy Stomp)
🎶 Ho… hang yer coat, if ye dare…
🎶 Ho… hang yer coat, if ye dare…
Eight arms twitch in the tavern air,
Ho… hang yer coat, if ye dare…

Outro
So drink yer rum and mind the door —
That octopus hook’s still keepin’ score 🐙🍺

Todays Thought

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person. 

-William Somerset Maugham, writer (25 Jan 1874-1965)

Archeology


https://youtube.com/shorts/J0JfMzmv2Mc?si=vbs6O3r9xnBv2Wm9

2026/01/22

How an HIV Miracle Drug Vanished

Todays Thought

I am so convinced of the advantages of looking at mankind instead of reading about them, and of the bitter effects of staying at home with all the narrow prejudices of an islander, that I think there should be a law amongst us to set our young men abroad for a term among the few allies our wars have left us. 

-Lord Byron, poet (22 Jan 1788-1824)

Todays Thought

The tragedy in the lives of most of us is that we go through life walking down a high-walled lane with people of our own kind, the same econ...