Just an observation.......

In my travels around various blogs, I notice a lot have advertisements on them.  I have no problem with that, (and who would care if I did) but one ad in particular keeps showing up - the one showing the before and after close ups of teeth and gums.  I really, really don't care to look at that.  Not that I'm squeamish, just that I have my preferences.  

A Connecticut Yankee, Bejabbers

I'm busy reading A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain.  I've never read it before, I must have missed in my reading travels.  Anyway, as I'm reading it, I began to think of all the things a person show know, in order to get full enjoyment from the book.   So here goes.  Please understand, I'm in the middle of it, so the list may not be complete.

The King Arthur Legends

It would be good to know at least a little something about the legends of King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, Merlin & the Knights.  It is surprisingly adult in character - lots of character flaws & tragedy.   Also lots of magic and mystery.  These legends have been around for centuries upon centuries, but a good and easy start for a beginner would be T.H. White's Once and Future King.  It's a pretty thick book, lots of pages with lots of words, but you get a good overview of things.   One of the more famous series of books is Sir Thomas Malory's, Le Morte d'Arthur  but be aware, this one is not for the faint hearted.  It was written back in the 15th century or there abouts, and it is not an easy read.  At least not for me, back when I tried to read it once.

British History  

You should also know some British history.  Broad surveys are better than nothing, but the more detail the better.   At the very least you should read something that covers the period from the withdrawal of Rome from Britain to Edward the Confessor - that's a period of 600 years or so.  And Twain also mixes is epochs a bit, so you might as well continue on until at least the early part of Henry VIII's reign.  Pay special attention to Henry II.  That's another 500 years, give or take.   It helps to know about civil and religious institutions in place during these times.  The most powerful institution in Europe during most of this period was the church, and though much of what I read so far, the protagonist expresses fear of the church.   Altho I haven't seen Feudalism mentioned by name in the book, it sure is described in actions, and that was an institution that was around in one form or another for quite awhile.  It would help to be aware of the different strata of medieval British society, from the Monarch on down to the Serfs.

19th Century World History 

The thing is, Mark Twain was not re-writing the Arthurian legends.  He satirizes them a bit, but he's also taking his shots at the world he knew, both in North America and Europe.   You should know something about the Industrial revolution, especially in the USA, but also in the world at large.  You should know a bit about the politics, institutions & attitudes of the late 19th century, both in the USA & Europe.  And also the technology.  It was a very innovative time.

Have a sense of humor 

Mark Twain writes some of the funniest things I've ever read, and they're just thrown in here or there.  This is where the 'bejabbers' in the title comes in, it was used in a couple of paragraphs in which Twain pokes a little fun at the literary world.  I'm still chuckling about it, but then my world may be a little insular than most (sigh). Sometimes his humor is very obvious.  Other times his humor is very subtle, and you have to be on your toes to catch it, which is why the more awareness you have of his culture or what he's writing about,  the more likely you are to really understand.  This is turning out (I believe) to be kind of a 'dark' book, not a happy story at all, but the biting humor is still there.

Stuff Around The House #12

Ok, so this is really a dumb way to load this little post. But this is the way it's going to be, and it is because 'blogger' is playing it's little game with my head and I don't have the desire to figure it out. I simply want to put two pictures side by side, and write stuff to the right, but apparently it can't be done. Or perhaps it can but I'm just too dense.

So. 12th in a never ending and irregular series about stuff around the house. There are 3 nice little items taking up space in one of the many corners in our place.

The chair was hand made, by my grandfather (my mother's father). I'm not sure when it was made, probably no earlier than the 1940's, or no later than the 1960's. Grandpa & Grandma farmed, had large gardens, kept a cow and a mule, occasionally pigs, always chickens, and were extremely self-sufficient compared to the way I currently live. The draw back, and this is straight from my Grandma when she was in her 90's, was they "worked like a dog" every day of their life. Anyway, this chair has been well used over the years, somehow I ended up with it, and it is quite a memory.

Behind the chair is a cane we picked up at a Pawn Shop in Hickory, North Carolina in 2007 I think. That's all I know about the history of it. It has a head shaped like a wolf, and it is fairly solid. Good for whompin' things I reckon.

The bottle next to the chair is something I got in Germany, when I was stationed there while in the Army. It actually was not mine, a friend of mine had it, and when he was finished with it I asked if I could have it & he gave it to me. It is a 3 liter bottle which was once full of something call Asbach Uralt. I took a picture of the label on back, which I'm sure was written by the German equivalent of Madison Avenue. It tells you how good it is, how you can drink it hot or cold, in coffee or tea, tho surprisingly, no recipe for putting it in beer - but then why would you do that to a German beer? I have no memory of having drank any of it, but I thought the bottle was interesting.

My thoughts on Cincinnati, Ohio

I've traveled thru Cincinnati several times.  Straight thru the city usually,  always on my way to or from Indiana.
The neat thing about Cincinnati is that it is larger than any city in Kentucky, and it's not even in Kentucky.   You can look at it from Kentucky, but there it is, in that foreign land north of the Ohio River, where, as you must know, the whole world is different.
The contrast is not quite as sharp as looking at El Paso, Texas from Ciudad Juarez, which I have also done with more than a little wonder, but there might be some very slight similarities if you use your imagination.
Thus end my thoughts on Cincinnati, Ohio.

Apparently Brains Can Be Imprinted, A Fable

Imagine the part of your brain which governs memories & thoughts is a page filled with words, and all your other brain functions are more pages filled with more words, large and complicated words, and all toghether these pages full of words comprise a very large and heavy book.  
Now imagine someone has picked a pretty plant from a field, a plant with yellow flowers, and decides they want to dry it out and press it in the book.  They don't have wax paper or anything, so they open the book at random and stick the plant in, close it and forget about it.  It just so happens that the plant was placed, quite by accident,  on the page filled with words that govern your memories and thoughts.
They forget about the plant for years.   During that time the plant becomes part of your memories and thoughts - it is very real.   You can touch it, feel it, smell it because it is there, pressed into your thoughts by the weight of the entire book.  It is part of your existance.
Years later someone pulls the book off the shelf and stumbles across this dried, pressed plant, and thinks it's beautiful.  They remove it so they can display it so that others may enjoy it.
But the outline of the plant is still there, on that page full of words.  Maybe particles from the plant remain too.  And even though the plant is no longer there, is no longer real, it remains in your thoughts.  Even though it is physically gone, the ghost of it is still there.  Like when you close your eyes after staring at something bright, you can still see a shadow of what you were looking at.
It has become imprinted on your brain.  It may cause obsessive thinking, perhaps rumination or even hallucinations.
The moral: always use wax paper when pressing plants, cause you never know whose brains you're messing with.
I made all this up, just now.  I know nothing about obsessions, ruminations or hallucinations, no matter what Patti Anne says.

A great-grandfather

This is my mother's mother's father.   My grandmother's father, in other words.  One of my 4 great-grandfathers.  I just came across this picture and thought it was interesting.
His name was Fayette Bishop, from Southwestern, Virginia.  I think Wise County, or maybe Big Stone Gap.   He died before I was born.
The picture I remember of him most was a picture that was taken when he was sick in bed.  He had white hair and a thick white mustache, and they put an old cain type chair upside down at the head of the bed, and put pillows on the back of the chair so he could prop himself up.
This picture is completely different - he's young & strong here, and just a little tough looking. This picture has to be from the 1880s or 1890s.   I'm a direct decendent.  As are multitudes of others.  So.  Got that going for me. Me and the multitudes.

Trojan.Refpron is Back!!! But not for long, I hope.

Last night before I went to bed, as an afterthought almost, I ran a Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware (MBAM) quick scan, and left it to run on its own.  It takes about 12-15 minutes to run, and I have my computer set up to go into stand-by, then shut down after 30 mins of inactivity.   It's really a careless & maybe sloppy thing to do.  

I also have Windows defender scheduled to run everyday, and Norton runs in the background off an on pretty much continuously.

So this morning when I powered the computer up, there was my MBAM report - and it had found Trojan.Refpron and Backdoor.Bot, and was waiting patiently for me to look at the report.  

Another WTF moment.

Here is an excerpt from the report:

Files Infected:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\msrstart.exe (Trojan.Refpron) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.
C:\WINDOWS\system32\FInstall.sys (Backdoor.Bot) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully

The last time I had Trojan.Refpron on my computer, my computer about bought the farm.  I don't know Refpron's relation to all that, but I do know I dont want it anywhere near me.  

So this is what I did:

• Gave MBAM the go ahead to quarantine and delete (or maybe it just did it.  It's several hours ago now, and you know how my attention span is)
• Checked to make sure that the Win32 service was still checked in the Data Execution Prevention section in the control panel.

This is how I did that:

• Went to control panel
• Clicked on Performance & Maintenance
• Clicked on Systems
• Selected Advanced Tab
• Selected Settings button in Performance Box
• Selected Data Execution Prevention Tab
• Made sure that button for "Turn on DEP for all services and processes except those I select" was still active
• Made sure that the box next to Generic Host Process for Win32 Services was still selected.

The reason I did this was because last month, in conjunction with this malware, I had a terrible problem with data exception errors (syshost32.exe), and this seemed to solve that problem.  I wanted to make sure it hadn't changed.  One of these days I'll unclick that box and see if anything bad happens.   

I also looked to make sure soxpeca.exe was NOT running on my computer.  It is associated with Trojan.Refpron, and if it's running that means trouble.  I wish I had looked before the MBAM delete, but I didnt think to.   Anyway, it's not there.  At least I can't find it.

So, everything is working normally, I've seen no symptoms.  

I wish I knew where it was coming from.  And I wish I knew how it's getting past my firewall, and the virus scans of my normal virus protection software.