There occurred a comment in the DUmpster yesterday, late Monday afternoon, wondering why the DUmpster was talking about hamburgers, chili, and beef stew--which of course is a quite reasonable question.
I responded, but imperfectly. I wanted to say "Well, it's Monday afternoon," but didn't, because that perhaps wouldn't make sense to many of those here.
The DUmpster is an assiduous observer of one of the basic laws of economics, pertaining to "production" and "consumption."
The primitives produce, and we consume.
Now, that's so contrary to what it's like in real life, one might have some, uh, difficulty grasping that, the primitives as producers, and decent and civilized people as consumers.
But try hard, really hard, to flip this in your mind, the primitives as producers.
Now, the DUmpster is not a market where the consumers have any say about what's produced; we can't coerce the primitives into more-steady production, making more, and better, campfires for us to enjoy, and at a steady rate where production and consumption are pretty much equal.
We have to take what the primitives produce, and sometimes the pickings are slim.
Especially by Monday afternoons.
I've watched traffic here on conservativecave, and for a couple of years before that at our old home, and of course on Skins's island, for a long time now. There's peculiar patterns of traffic, where the output of the primitives usually doesn't correspond with the demand for the primitives' goods.
On this side, there's lots of members who leave conservativecave for the weekend on Friday afternoons, not coming back until Monday mornings. When they come back, they find mountains of primitive campfires, from the weekend, to read.
That makes it very busy here on Mondays, busier than a bee-hive, as the non-weekenders get caught up on what's been put here since the preceding Friday afternoon, generating lots and lots of comments of interest to the seven-days-a-weekers here. There's a lot of give-and-take between the two groups; the ones who've seen the primitive campfires during the weekend, and the ones who've just come back from the weekend.
But that's on topics already posted, and by Monday perhaps two and a half days old.
On the other side, on Skins' island, the primitives began degenerating into drug- or alcohol-induced lethargy on Friday afternoons, and pretty much stay drunk or stoned all weekend long--which means they aren't producing much. And on Mondays, the primitives are preoccupied with recovering, rather than hanging around Skins's island.
And so on Mondays, while the "comments" buzz all over the DUmpster, there's a severe shortage of "topics posted," because the primitives haven't been producing. Consumption outraces production.
Unless some sort of major event or person causes a Great Discombobulation among the primitives on a Monday, Mondays are lousy for trying to find good material to swipe from Skins's island. There usually isn't much of it, and what there is of it, isn't very good.
That's why, by late Monday afternoons, we're down to discussing hamburgers, chili, and beef stew (or somesuch) here in the DUmpster; we've consumed all the primitives' production, and have to wait until they get going again, after recovering from their weekend hangovers.
The cycle repeats itself every week; it's as predictable as the primitives.
