When I wrote about living OTG and telling stories and all, readership was good. It tapered a bit downwards over the previous year or so (2017/2018) but, to be fair, I wrote more and more politically and philosophically. That stuff does not appeal like ravens, whales or even sex, boobs, guns and bullets. And most people like pictures. I really do not do enough pictures. My bad.’
‘Ya want readers?’ Open with a picture of a buxom lass in a torn, wet t-shirt holding a gun and with a lifted truck in the background.
But I want readers, not mouth-breathers, (not because I don’t like mouth-breathers – some of my best friends…..) because I really like feedback, comments, a bit of give-and-take. Don’t forget: I live remote. I like to socialize a bit. My blog is my chat-line.
Lately, I have noticed that anti-Trump rants are being somewhat well-received. So is a good piece on economics and/or some other political, social phenomena or trend. The response is NOT like before the Russians stole my previous blog (pre-2017). But good enough. Good fun. Good feedback.
The OTG stuff now gets poorer numbers. Unless I write about Sal doing something heroic. THAT usually goes over well.
That is all on me, of course. Fer sure (it is my blog, after all) and I have shifted the main topics quite a bit these past two years. The purely OTG audience has left for better OTG blogs. I get that. I am NOT entirely OK with it because I see all topics as relevant to all of us but I get it. People have to make choices where they spend their time. I just don’t like losing people…..
So? The ‘poll’ part…….?
If you are willing, please list your top three topics of interest. And put it in the comments. NO! We all know a scantily clad lass is number one (for the guys) out there*. So list #2, #3 and #4 if you will. Please. Even if you don’t normally comment, listing three words won’t kill ya…..Philosophy? Politics?Economics? OTG? Anecdotes? Zombies? Trump? Money? OTG Villages? Sally heroics?
The really interesting change for me has been the new ‘commentators’ this recent last few months.
NB *Sal added (for the guys out there) so that there was no misunderstanding….as if? I mean….who doesn’t like scantily clad, gun-toting, truck-driving gals?
Our Off the Grid Home 
Philosophical, sociology and brain worms. Too bad you mock ravens and whales.they are your James Herriot attraction.
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Thanks. You can tolerate the philosophy, eh? And the sociology. But what are brain worms? I am sure I have ’em but I am not sure what they are…..worms? IN the brain?
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Well ear worms are a ‘thing’ aka the song that one can not get out of one’s head. Brain worms are recurring issues. Were you not nominated for a humor award? Stephen Leacock Award! Ocassionally some ironic comments are very funny. Situational humor like the bag lady kayaker is funny. People do not go off the OTG to look at starfish in a tidal pool but squirrels hanging upside down forty feet from the ground climbing to a bird feeder, that’s funny. Ravens opening your freezer is not funny to you but if you make the readers laugh more that’s golden. Selfies are not that interesting but a situational selfie with a raven photobombing it. That’s funny. Leacock was known for his gentle self-deprecating writing.
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Stories with humor, life experiences and some politics.
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Since you asked, 1) hammer on the thumbnail sort of carpentry, 2) Roasts of Trump, Site C, Liberals – I guess any sort of political denunciation of our fearless ‘leaders’, 3) any sort of lass, scantily clad or not. I have a vivid imagination!
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We’re getting too old for “boobs, guns and trucks”, Dave…(at least I am). Not to say I don’t still always check them out, when they pop out, however they don’t seem appropriate for your OTG blog.
I have strong political opinions, as you know from the many private communications I send to you.
Often, after reading your political rants here I will email you privately. This just doesn’t feel like the place to come and and argue politics here with you, but you know I voted for Trump.
Rants attacking him, especially sounding like a media mogul?, leave me cold and not looking to reply. Of course, you are free to have whatever opinion. On economics? You have really well thought out stuff but, well, cannot add much and that’s not really an OTG topic.
OTG themes are very appealing to me and I follow many channels on youtube of folks who live that way. For me, as a Christian, I find many back-to-the-landers are also followers of Christ, like me.
They have spiritual elements of Biblical end time prophesy coincidences, and we hope and the pray together about what lies ahead in our world. We God Bless each other. Those things strike a chord in me. Many other homesteaders think similarly. Not all of us breath out of their mouths, like I do, though. I often visit and comment on those channels. This is not to say that this blog should be like that. It is yours and it should be what you make it and what it is: about you and Sally and your daily struggles with your life on the island. I really enjoy those things on your blog. Rusty Solar Panel terminals and Aluminum Skiff issues. Maybe hiding in the workshop from the book club women? Your wry sarcastic humor is great reading. The style is fun and appealing. Don’t stop your regular posting here. I read them all. Even if I don’t often comment.
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Thanks, Kev. Good to hear. Always glad you are one of the regulars. As for Trump…..oooooohhhhh don’t get me started…..:) I agree, tho. I will do a bit more OTG. There IS stuff, to be sure, but I tend to stick now with the ‘projects’ and that includes the village concept and such. Docks. Newbies. Etc.
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Pretty much anything.
Your topics firing in all directions never cease to amaze.
OTG stories, Politics. Crime. Vacations,
All seem to have their own appeal.
Coming up with topics every few days would be hard.
But with the buffoons we see in the news……
You have endless subject matter.
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You are right, the topics are served up on platters but that does not make them interesting to my readers. I recall the first Jussie Smollet news story and I said to Sal. “That just sounds too fishy to be real. Who leaves a hotel to get a Sub at 2:00 in the am and ends up talking on their cell to their manager…?” THAT does not mean the story is NOT true but the cops seem to think that. JS now charged with a hoax crime. And we’ll just have to see….but it smelled from the start…..Dave does Entertainment Tonight? I don’t think so. Some ballplayer just signed a $300M contract for ten years. That is absolute madness and yet, not a peep from any moralist – like me. Robt. Kraft, worth 6.6B gets sex from sex slaves in Florida who cook their noodles on the back steps? It is hard to make that kind of evil up. And on and on the buffet goes…….but what appeals to MY guys? I get that local OTG stories have some appeal. They do to me, too. So, that’s a given. But how far can we go on politics….for instance….does anyone care about Jagmeet Singh? We should. But do we? Honestly…? Me? I do not. I am sure he is a great guy. Vision and all. But, for me…not a spark…no magic….nada.
I have just entered the final 20 – the last leg of the journey. I am on the cusp of old. My cup runneth dry. And THAT is an exploration. THAT is a dark room worth looking into before getting in too far….but who writes about that? Who reads about that? And so the search for relevance continues……
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Thanks for the lesson in how to be excoriating. Excoriate, to use a metaphorical cat of nine tails to remove the flesh of reputation. Your use of the term slavery, do you mean it figuratively as in all humans are slaves to time and circumstances? Do you mean that the old man was enslaved to his desires and wanted to be gratified by the massage parlour sex workers who were slaves to economic necessity. We are all slaves in that sense.
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I mean slavery two different ways depending on the topic. In the case of sex trade workers kept virtually locked away in a massage parlour, I mean it literally. Forced against their will to do for others without any hope of freedom or personal growth. In the broader sense, I use the term to refer to most of us – those who, because they are brought unconscious to a brainwashing system, learn crap from old institutions, buy crap because everyone else does and are enslaved by mortgages and debt and obligations because the ‘system’ is designed to take your life for food, shelter and what has become the ‘basics’. Put another way: I do not believe we should have to work for twenty to thirty years to pay off a home (given that we had the money to get a mortgage). I do not think the ‘system’ is accidental or natural. I think it is subtle and Machiavellian slavery perpetrated on the ignorant masses.
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Mind you, enslavement by testosterone is a topic….but not one to pursue right now…..
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I hear ya Dave! I read ya too. All the time, even if i do not always jot down my two cents worth in reply. Maybe it is the time of year, maybe it’s the time of life, I’m also feeling stuck for subject matter….how can that be? So much to write about, so little time, really.
My faves on your blog: 1) OTG stuff, any and all of it ( I like to compare notes on this),
2) adventures, both at home and abroad or on the road, 3) philosophy (yours). I am not so much interested in reading/hearing political stuff (overwhelming quantities of this already in other forums). I like photos and Sally stories. And finally, just so you know, I am overwhelmingly uninterested in scantily clad anybody, guns or big trucks of any sort. Keep on keeping on Dave!
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Thanks. When I first read your comment, I read ‘overwhelmingly INterested in scantily clad…..’ and burst out laughing. THAT was funny. But I then read it right and I am still smiling…..I must confess to spending extra thinking time on how money influences our lives and in so many bad ways. As Mark Boyle presents it, it is a means of separation…we are separated by it rather than joined by it….
Thanks for contributing.
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One thing for sure I have zero interest in the excoriation of those flawed beings in the passing irony of life. Literature is packed with many weighty topics and many points of views. Of coarse there is room for more deep thoughts but the bar is high. There is a way to look at the situation of a seventy-seven year old man paying for human intimacy but let’s leave the prurient details out. A car is broken down on the freeway, traffic slows and a news helicopter is on scene and the drama begins. I’m interesting reading your wry sense of ironic humour. Dave as an ironist, bring that on.
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Yeah…RKraft is a guy worth $6.6B and married to a wife half his age and, at the same time, exploiting the poverty and hopes of young immigrant females. This is the same guy who is a close friend of Trump. As was Jeffery Epstein. Pigs of New York. I keep getting to the edge of defending men against the growing prejudice of them just being men and, just as I get close to writing such a piece, some bully-idiot-pig-dog comes along and undermines any possible defense I could write. I find this guy way worse than Weinstein, worse than Epstein. W met women who came to him looking for celebrity work and he exploited their dreams but they could also have walked out. Epstein’s girls came for the pay and the drugs. These immigrant women CAN’T walk out. They have no choice – whatsoever. They were enslaved. He should be made to give away every penny and work with poor immigrants for the rest of his life.
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OTG stories are good.
Vacation adventure stories are good.
Political commentaries are good.
Environmental stories.
Crime stories.
Sky’s the limit and then there are the internet conspiracy wackos “jet trails spraying mind control chems”….. endless brain pablum to keep us wannbe OTG’ers entertained.
And when all else fails.
Its not up to you to provide us with free entertainment day in and day out.
Time for a bicycle ride in the warm Arizona sunshine?
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True. Kinda. But it’s NOT really about entertainment …….although feedback is MY entertainment. It’s really about ‘getting it out’ of my system. I need to ‘stretch’ my thoughts and most people prefer NOT to. They may have the thoughts – they are smart and thoughtful – but they do not have to exercise them. Many are content to think within themselves. I sorta feel I have to ‘put ’em out there’ to kind of give them some substance, some three-dimensionality. If a man thinks in the forest and says the thoughts out loud, does anyone hear him? And, for the record, I can think and peddle at the same time (if the bike seat is broad and comfortable).
Crime stories?
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Orchids of Asia Day Spa faces allegations of human trafficking. Unproven allegations based on the circumstantial evidence that it appeared that some of the women appeared to be living at the at the spa. Media reports are very circumspect about these about allegations and jump to no unproven claims. Mr Kraft claims he innocence. The ironic aspect of this story is that people, some of them disrobing before taking selfies outside the Orchids of Asia Day Spa, located in a strip mall. Hehehe a strip mall! Get it? The news helicopters are overhead and Mr Krsft’s reputation must be excoriated.
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You make a good point…both of you….maybe Kraft was donating Mac and Cheese? Maybe the women were willingly so employed? Maybe the police got it all wrong? Who hasn’t cooked noodles on the back steps? Condemning Kraft from the allegations makes me no better than those against I have railed before…you/me/us really SHOULD NOT condemn from allegations. Having said that, allegations from the police presumably carry more weight than allegations from an angry, spurned or disappointed lover and actual charges laid tends to add a bit more weight. Still (me culpa) they are all innocent until PROVEN guilty.
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Minor point no charges laid yet against the Orchid of Asia Day Spa. But the spa is considering allegedly to start. to charge for naked selfies. Commercialism eh!
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A fictional headline possibly: Orchids of Asia Day Spa shelters homeless street people, houses and feeds them and introduces them to work as handmaidens.
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Some are offering Montana to Canada for one trillion dollars.
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No Fracking way !
The US flag looks great with 50 stars.
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It looked good with forty-eight stars…so way!
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i am pretty much game for whatever makes me think and question life, humour, guns and trucks( not that crazy for boobs but do like the neighbour who cooks breakfast without his shirt maybe that is my equivalent of boobs)
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Thank you for that!
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you are most welcome
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To save repetition, let me say my views align with those of Island Time, supra.
The only difference is in the scantily-clad department. Sex, boobs, guns – all good. Big trucks not so much.
You have brought home to the readership that you detest Trump. We get it. Now if Bill and Hilary would only be restored to the White House, we could all rest easy.
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Not so fast, there, DG. Bill and Hillary were NOT well loved, did not adhere to the highest standards and have made out like bandits most of their lives. IF I had to choose between Hillary and Trump, I would have chosen Hillary but no one has to choose either. I would have chosen neither.
AND…with some work…..the choices people have can be made more numerous and/or better. Don’t forget the basic criticism: the party system limits democracy. The party system destroys integrity. The party system is corrupt. How can anyone completely sold out to the party properly represent you? Hell…why bother representing you when Goldman Sachs/coal mining lobby/big oil/Robert Kraft types et al has paid me big-time to rep them?
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Perhaps my point was not well-expressed. Had Hilary won, I would hope you would be equally apoplectic. The two candidates put forward were both unpalatable in the extreme, albeit for different reasons. Had I had a right to vote, I would have voted for neither. But ten, I never vote in elections. Doing so would suggest I somehow approve of the process, or of any of the gangsters in either Canada or the US who run for politics. All the same, really.
Look at the silliness going on in BC right now, with government-appointed persons in high office with access to the public purse lining their own pockets (yeah, I know, guilty only in the court of public opinion). Why make a big deal about it. This has been part of government, all parties, since time out of mind. In my time in BC, I recall a long line of characters who were outed for their misdeeds, my memory recalling folks such as “Broadway Bob” McClelland of the socreds and his pal Peter Hyndman and his penchant for taxpayer-paid Pouilly-Fuissé. If asked, I could came up with so many examples at the federal and provincial levels of gov’t. that this blog would run out of bandwidth. After a bit of noise, all this stuff gets forgotten. Or whitewashed, in such rare cases as Mike Duffy, where some upstart actually had the temerity to commence a criminal court challenge. O tempora! O Mores!
But, to cast Craig James in a more favourable light, to be fair, I think he deserves credit for having the taxpayers buy him a wood splitter. That tells us that he was fixin’ to join the good guys and to move off grid, where that tool would come in mighty handy. Praiseworthy indeed. Probably Adrienne Clarkson is still socking it to the taxpayers years after leaving office in order to build up her war chest to go OTG.
Probably the Plecas and James scandal will end with them receiving a public apology from the premier and $5 million each from the public purse as compensation for defamation. Maybe it should be $10 million. That’s where the feds have set the bar with Omar Khadr et al.
I find myself wondering, if C. James moves to an OTG location near moi, would it be opprobrious for me to ask to borrow the wood splitter once in awhile? I am getting a bit long in the tooth. Each year the 8-lb. maul, the 10-lb. sledge, wedges, etc., all seem a bit more arduous of use than in earlier years. Suggesting that, as a BC taxpayer of long years I see myself as having a bit of a stake in the thing, would that be churlish of me?
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Not churlish in the least. Indeed, worthy of a scene in a sit-com based on OTG characters (and I do have quite a collection of them). You know I agree that the the public service system is corrupt and that it feeds itself first. Having said that, a sense of entitlement is a subtle kind of corruption. Much of what ACTUALLY is corrupt in the sense that it does not serve the tax payer in the least is viewed by the offender as ‘the way it is done’…..and so vast sums are wasted and little if any guilt is experienced. But, that is another rant. Thank you for yours.
And should James move to a neighbourhood near you…..steal the damn splitter! Donate it to the community.
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DTC, your “Not so fast, there” comment made me smile. Reminded me of a joke I heard in Toronto, circa 1970. Went like this.
An officer commanding a group of men had to break the news to one (let’s call that man “Jones”) that his mother had died. He found that assigned task a bit difficult to handle face-to-face. So, the next time his men line up before him for inspection, he ordered: “All of you whose mother is still living, take one step forward.” He noticed that Jones was starting to move forward with a number of others. At that point he called out “Not so fast there Jones!”.
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Dave, I appreciated your ironic joke about Jones’s aspiration for his mother to be living. A stumble for hope.
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Hi Dave – Been off the Internet a bit lately. We were on our month long RV trip to Arizona. We came a bit later than you did so got more of the rain, clouds and cooler weather. Even so, it was better than the snow up north. Getting the RV back to Bellingham was a challenge getting across the I-5 pass to Oregon. Maybe there’s a book in it. You now I came for the OTG and those are my favourite posts. More pictures would be great. And stories about Sal. – Margy
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