Proof

"The Best Just Got Better"
-New Coke slogan

Its elegance,
its engines,
its exciting new features,
make other cars
seem ordinary
— Edsel advertisement, 1957

Now you can be as loud as you want with New Doritos Wow! Tortilla Crisps.  They've got all the super loud, break-out-from-the-crowd taste of Doritos.  And because they're made with OLEAN, they've got only 1 gram of fat at 1/3 fewer calories.  So even with less fat, it's still…the loudest taste on earth.  Wow!

"Everybody Needs A Yugo Sometime."

It was "like Pulp Fiction for the year 3000" and "like Star Wars, only better"
- John Travolta, promoting Battlefield Earth

Do you believe any of those?

You could certainly hear or read those words enough, back in the day.  So the message was there, but who was receptive?

I'll put it another way.  Why would anyone believe anyone's unsupported word on anything, especially when it's self-serving?  The above are just examples, though they're infamous ones.  New Coke was massively perceived as worse, Edsel is still a byword for failure, Wow! chips caused "anal leakage" (Wow! indeed), nobody needed a Yugo ever, and Battlefield Earth is on many "worst ever" lists.

And yet so many advertisers, politicians, and influencers expect you to take their word for things.

Since you can find anything on the internet, you can find plenty of claims that won't hold water.  The earth is flat, we never went to the moon, vaccines are dangerous…the list goes on and on.  And just as nonsensical as the ad slogans I started this with.  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  Your product is best?  Talk is cheap.  Let's see some proof.

I'll talk more about it soon(-ish), but just keep this in mind for now: If someone suffers no penalty for inaccuracy, maybe don't trust their words.  Furthermore, if they benefit from inaccuracy, maybe don't even listen.

There are reputable sources out there.  But the self-serving, self-promoting, and even self-centered ones, not so much.

Traders (New Free Ebook)

A two-bit trading caravan, a young man serving as lead guard for little more than meals.  Traveling from one small, poor village to the next, barely making enough to survive.

The lead guard is young—too young.  He's determined on a better life, but will his lack of maturity keep him from attaining it?  Will he cause too much unthinking harm to others on the way?

What trade-offs will he have to make?

A free (but not public domain) ebook, though you'll need an account to download it:

https://self.gutenberg.org/eBooks/WPLBN0100751116-Traders-by-Johnson-Kevin-Wade.aspx? 

We're Not Going to Make It

Wondering what brought on my last entry?  Read on:

My wife recently had a terrifying medical emergency.  Don't worry, she's recovered and doing really well.  Still, she said after too long a time in the hospital, that if she'd been alone in the house when it happened, she'd probably be dead.

Terrifying.  Makes me think of things like the image atop this entry.

I don't ever want to see her laid low like that again.  I don't ever want to see her that ill.  That frightened.

But it brought home something I've known since my father's death long ago.  Life doesn't just keep going.  "Happily ever after" can happen, but it won't be forever.  Nothing is forever.

So, while I never want to see something like that again—or to go through an ordeal like I had in my own hospitalization a couple of years ago—I or we or she probably will.

Which is to say, we're fine for now…but not forever.

For those of you impatiently waiting for my next novel, take heart: it's written.  It's been through a round of revisions, even.  And it'll get another round, and be (self-)published.  Only a matter of time.

For that matter, the novel after that is mostly written as well; over 80k words.  But it's not going quickly.  Nothing is right now, not for me.  So take heart, and I'm sorry I'm taking so much time.

Time.  "Too long a time."  "Only a matter of time."  How many meanings those words can take on.