feel free to change your format or use this site for a rant whenever you think it's needed; i'll still have ckm3 on all my feedreaders, and will catch anything you write...
Thank you so much for all your time and effort. Your comments and links have been very informative, entertaining and sometimes very depressing - typically all at once.
The first site I visit everyday is going away? Parting is not sweet sorrow...it's bitter sorrow. Maybe a weekly posting? Thanks for keeping things in perspective. I'm truly bummed.
Thanks, Charles. It was a beacon of sanity while it was fun. I'm sure you'll find something else to do with a more positive return ... my best in whatever it is.
I have been amazed by the commitment and time you have invested each day to bring forth so much information punctuated with wit and humor and sealed with wonderful photography. I thank you. Yours was the my first read of the day. I will miss stopping by.
Your site was the 1st one opened on my reading list each morning. I, too, will miss your humor (and the photos). In the hopes that you will miss us as much as we will miss you I plan to leave my bookmark to your blog in the Number One position. We can hope, can't we? Enjoy whatever the future holds for you and many thanks. You will truly be missed.
I've read you every morning for years now. I've often wondered how you kept it up without the weight of it all crushing your spirit. I'll miss your wit & compassion but I completely understand the need to walk away from it & enjoy what time you have left. Thank you & good luck.
Thanks for your valiant efforts in keeping yourself and the rest of us sane in these increasingly trying times. Enjoy your retirement from these pages and know that we shall all feel the lack, each and every morning!
There comes a time in life when the best thing for your health is to cancel the newspaper subscription. Enjoy the sun, the stars, and all that is dear to you under the sky.
Your mission was: This is a place for me to show off my thin talents - cynicism & snapshots You carried it out very well! Thank you for injecting humor into your insights and thanks for the 'parting shots' as well. As many others have said - thank you and you will be missed.
I don't remember how I found your blog but I have enjoyed reading your work. Thank you for the links and commentary. Best wishes on your future endeavors.
Some Assembly Required has been my first stop every morning for many years now. I will miss your insight and perspective. Enjoy your rest, you've certainly earned it. ~Steven C
Thank you for what you have given to us so freely. I have enjoyed your postings and observations for quite some time. I recognize we have some differences, but if two people agree on everything, one of them might be unnecessary. lol.
Believe me when I say that I understand the feeling about blogging after nearly sixteen years. If it is not a commercial enterprise, it must be a calling to endure.
Find another outlet for your talents, because they are real, and ought not to be wasted.
CKM your blog was required reading for me every day. i understand nothing goes on forever. thank you so very much for helping us stay informed. maybe some of your adherents might band together an take turns, with your guidance keeping the site going.
i'm trying to find something to write and the first thing that occurs to me is how long has it been since you changed the picture on your homepage. The decline and fall of civilizations have always happened and perhaps always will. Some have been swept away with no trace while others have been chronicled after the fact mostly by authors with an agenda. Perhaps this will be the first fall that has chronicled as it happens by intelligent and objective people such as yourself. I hope there will be a way to capture at least the essence of what you have presented here for i feel that this will be the most epic of all declines.
Like many of those commenting before me, you have been my first morning read for many years and I will miss your dry take on the insanity around us. From a fellow Canuck I add my thanks for all the time and energy and passion you have given to us so freely.
I, too, will miss your posts. There were days when I had to force myself to read your blog, because the world has become such a horrible place, but I couldn't hide from the reality of what is going on -- even though it often brought tears.
Good luck and please know that should you wish to post now and then there are many of us who will be checking on you and who will read whatever you wish to write for us.
Thank you so much the time you have dedicated to sharing your thoughts with us. Thank you too for the charming photographs - they so often brightened the mornings. We will miss you. Wishing you fair seas and a star to steer by.
I pulled the plug on my own blog about a year ago. At times I've missed it, but not often. Understand your decision, but I'll miss your insights anyway. Good luck.
Thank you. I enjoyed your wit and the way you shone a light in those dark corners that the media missed. I hate to see the blog go, but can well understand that there comes a time when the effort outweighs the rewards.
Fare well good friend. I will miss your commentary, as will many others. I hope you can get in a few more trips to here and there, while there are still beaches and coral to enjoy.
How horrible to lose your funny sarcastic biting ascorbic wonderful wonderful blog. i hope you enjoy your time away from here. your gift was very much appreciated by all those before me. so few have said it so well.
I am thankful that your enjoyable writing meant enough that I shall greatly miss it, may take some time before I can bear to delete the bookmark. So few witty folks about this days that it was a relief almost, a coming home, to find you all these years ago. My gratitude is deep and wide for the privilege.
Wow. I've been reading your first-rate mordant jocularity for years and years. One of my few and diminishing pleasures on the tubes. Fare well, ckm. I'll click out of sheer habit for some time.
I had to double check that this wasn't dated April 1st. I've lost track of the years that I've been reading you; and the other blogs I've dropped in the meantime. A heartfelt thankyou, long wished and never said, whether you keep at it or not. Some assembly is indeed required.
I echo what many have said here, fare well CKM. I've only been here for a relatively short time but have absorbed the 'pith' and the patterns of what was presented here.
Personally this blog has gotten me through the same hourly 'shift' work, the type of jobs which are all that are left as well documented by the many SAR 'snappy' / biting witticisms on the topic.
-- Some here have written about 'what to do now'.
Well, for anyone 'meta research' oriented, i.e. doing what CKM does (albeit perhaps less skilled at the witty summaries), here are a few suggestions:
IF anyone was 'interested' in compiling SAR to look for 'meta patterns' and tags, this would actually be a good project. So, I'll be personally starting back at the blog's inception and going back through.
Basically: we all know everything's going to shit, it's really a waste of our time to be too depressed about it ??
BUT what's more interesting is gathering data and looking for patterns.
SO if we have any 'programmer' or tech/ web savvy types, I suggest you gather all the tags in a tag cloud (but not those 'useless' ones that tell you nothing and look fancy) and begin looking for patterns.
Just like the 'Decline of the Empire' blog (http://www.declineoftheempire.com/), this is a good 'testament' to what is going on here. I see Demetrius from 'The Cynical Tendency' also chimed in.
So if any of you are serious/ 'actual' researchers let's get going with this and I'd like to see what any of you can 'gather' and 'distill' from this body of work . . .
Anony 8:25PM I think - although I'm not technically savvy enough to be sure - I'm greatly flattered by your suggested project. But surely there are better things to do with your time.
And further comment I have been coming here and reading for many, many years and I will greatly miss this blog. It is one of three or four sites that I have checked on an almost daily basis for as long as I can remember So long and thanks for all the pith
Just a quick note on the scope of what I'd be collecting. These would be things like - issue 7363:
TRENDS AND HISTORICAL EVENTS # Subprime housing crises/ mortgage crisis
# B & B’s: Banks and bailouts
# The rise of: Tar shale mining (and now Fracking)
# CLIMATE watch: Kyoto, 383 ppm
So I'd be looking at / scouring for 'interesting' data points.
Do you keep the original links to articles by any chance (although they've probably gone by now). But by any chance did you save them 'offline' when you first read them? (I'm guessing not).
-- RE: "But surely there are better things to do with your time."
Haha, well as Dave Cohen on DOTE writes, it is important to 'keep busy' no matter what in the face of all this 'muck':
So I'll let you know if anything 'interesting' arises out of this in my own research notes as you'd probably be interested to see what can be 'distilled' from your body of work which is now upwards of 10 years worth of (in my terms) data collection and meta summaries containing clues as to 'WTF is going on' out there/ in larger terms beyond what people will engage with in immediate 'day to day,' 'what effects my immediately self-interest' terms.
thank you!!!! you have a gift for picking the most important bits out of the incessant babble. i will miss your humour. a sad day, though not without it's silver lining. now my morning has no more excuses to delay working on my personal escape plan: retiring to my sailboat in warmer waters. good luck to you, and keep on having fun!!
NO, we need you.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for your gift to us, of your time and your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Will miss you.
ReplyDeleteThanks for opening my eyes just a little bit wider.
ReplyDeleteMr. Michaelson, thanks for being a torch-bearer in the great battle. You've been both entertaining and informative.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Your daily post will be missed.
ReplyDeleteWill miss you my friend
ReplyDeleteSo long, and thanks for all the dish.
ReplyDeleteSo long, and thanks for all the dish.
ReplyDeletefeel free to change your format or use this site for a rant whenever you think it's needed; i'll still have ckm3 on all my feedreaders, and will catch anything you write...
ReplyDeleteThank you for your hard work. I have thoroughly enjoyed this document of our decline.
ReplyDeleteStay healthy and happy.
Paul
Thank you so much for all your time and effort. Your comments and links have been very informative, entertaining and sometimes very depressing - typically all at once.
ReplyDeleteThank you for all the work.
ReplyDeleteThe first site I visit everyday is going away? Parting is not sweet sorrow...it's bitter sorrow. Maybe a weekly posting? Thanks for keeping things in perspective. I'm truly bummed.
ReplyDeleteWell, if so. So long and thanks for all the fish or something like that.
ReplyDeleteThank you and yeah, you did your time...
I have enjoyed your work and wish you the best.
NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!
ReplyDeleteAlthough I completely know and understand the feeling.
Thanks, Charles. It was a beacon of sanity while it was fun. I'm sure you'll find something else to do with a more positive return ... my best in whatever it is.
ReplyDeleteThanks for what you have done here.
ReplyDeleteMay whatever you do next bring you joy.
Dear Charles,
ReplyDeletemany thanks for informing us. The humor in your comments made the often bleak news a lot more bearable. I will miss your blogging a lot!
-Perrin
I have been amazed by the commitment and time you have invested each day to bring forth so much information punctuated with wit and humor and sealed with wonderful photography. I thank you. Yours was the my first read of the day. I will miss stopping by.
ReplyDeleteDamn, I will miss your insight and perspective . But as an old guy myself I understand the need to slow down. Be well . Thank you .
ReplyDeleteBernard
Your site was the 1st one opened on my reading list each morning. I, too, will miss your humor (and the photos). In the hopes that you will miss us as much as we will miss you I plan to leave my bookmark to your blog in the Number One position. We can hope, can't we? Enjoy whatever the future holds for you and many thanks. You will truly be missed.
ReplyDeleteThank you sir!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what to have with my morning coffee, I guess I'll take up smoking. Just know you are promoting smoking.
ReplyDeleteThis blog will be missed. Best of luck.
Thank you for the gift of your insight and humor in increasingly troubled and trying times. You will be missed.
ReplyDeleteYour site has been both a pleasure and required reading every morning over coffee for years. Thank you so much, you'll be missed.
ReplyDeleteI've read you every morning for years now. I've often wondered how you kept it up without the weight of it all crushing your spirit. I'll miss your wit & compassion but I completely understand the need to walk away from it & enjoy what time you have left. Thank you & good luck.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your valiant efforts in keeping yourself and the rest of us sane in these increasingly trying times. Enjoy your retirement from these pages and know that we shall all feel the lack, each and every morning!
ReplyDeleteBest,
Jason
Thank you for everything you've written. I will miss reading you every morning. Best wishes to you in your coming endeavors.
ReplyDeleteLosing my first in the morning read. The material is available elsewhere, but the commentary will be missed.
ReplyDeleteYour wit, humor and insight has been a great help in these times. Thank you, and all the best going forward. You have earned or respect and caring.
ReplyDeleteWell, looks like I'll need a new morning routine. I will miss the daily marveling at your seemingly endless ability to pair stories with headlines.
ReplyDeleteI picked a terrible time to quit sniffing glue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WAwuSK36Gw
There comes a time in life when the best thing for your health is to cancel the newspaper subscription. Enjoy the sun, the stars, and all that is dear to you under the sky.
ReplyDeleteYour mission was:
ReplyDeleteThis is a place for me to show off my thin talents - cynicism & snapshots
You carried it out very well!
Thank you for injecting humor into your insights and thanks for the 'parting shots' as well.
As many others have said - thank you and you will be missed.
I don't remember how I found your blog but I have enjoyed reading your work. Thank you for the links and commentary. Best wishes on your future endeavors.
ReplyDeleteSome Assembly Required has been my first stop every morning for many years now. I will miss your insight and perspective. Enjoy your rest, you've certainly earned it. ~Steven C
ReplyDeleteBest regards!
ReplyDeleteBen
Thank you for what you have given to us so freely. I have enjoyed your postings and observations for quite some time. I recognize we have some differences, but if two people agree on everything, one of them might be unnecessary. lol.
ReplyDeleteBelieve me when I say that I understand the feeling about blogging after nearly sixteen years. If it is not a commercial enterprise, it must be a calling to endure.
Find another outlet for your talents, because they are real, and ought not to be wasted.
I wish you well.
Your insight and "turn of phrase" will be missed
ReplyDeleteYour blog was one of the first I ever read on a regular basis. Thank you for all your work & insights. I will miss you. Love, Mareena
ReplyDeleteAddios, you served long and true!
ReplyDeleteGegner
thanks for all you have done
ReplyDeletebop til you drop, admittedly in different ways as time goes on
i will turn to nakedcapitalism for pointers to the news
may the creative forces of the universe smile in your general direction
You will be greatly missed. I know a bank where the wild thyme grows...we married at Stratford. Try this:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EUytEX_XkE
Best!
Thanks for all the posts.
ReplyDeleteBeing an older person myself I can understand it being time to move on.
I wish there were someone else taking up the mantle.
Best wishes in your next adventures,
- Rick
You will be missed - hope the future goes well - have enjoyed my daily read
ReplyDeleteCKM
ReplyDeleteyour blog was required reading for me every day. i understand nothing goes on forever. thank you so very much for helping us stay informed. maybe some of your adherents might band together an take turns, with your guidance keeping the site going.
best regards
michael savoca
olympia wa
Thank you for your efforts . I have enjoyed your sharp and accurate comments on this sorry world that we inhabit. You will be missed.
ReplyDeleteYours was the first blog I'd read in the morning and I will miss it. Thank you for your gift all these years. Good luck.
ReplyDeletei'm trying to find something to write and the first thing that occurs to me is how long has it been since you changed the picture on your homepage. The decline and fall of civilizations have always happened and perhaps always will. Some have been swept away with no trace while others have been chronicled after the fact mostly by authors with an agenda. Perhaps this will be the first fall that has chronicled as it happens by intelligent and objective people such as yourself. I hope there will be a way to capture at least the essence of what you have presented here for i feel that this will be the most epic of all declines.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteMr.ckmIII,
As for parting,
"And with a silken thread plucks it back again"
Best wishes and thank you for adding your photography for your parade lap.
wm
Like many of those commenting before me, you have been my first morning read for many years and I will miss your dry take on the insanity around us. From a fellow Canuck I add my thanks for all the time and energy and passion you have given to us so freely.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Don
I, too, will miss your posts. There were days when I had to force myself to read your blog, because the world has become such a horrible place, but I couldn't hide from the reality of what is going on -- even though it often brought tears.
ReplyDeleteGood luck and please know that should you wish to post now and then there are many of us who will be checking on you and who will read whatever you wish to write for us.
Thank you for all your work,
Classof65
Thank you so much the time you have dedicated to sharing your thoughts with us. Thank you too for the charming photographs - they so often brightened the mornings. We will miss you. Wishing you fair seas and a star to steer by.
ReplyDeleteAlicia, TX
You will be missed so much. Thank you for the time you have sacrified for us. Godspeed.
ReplyDeleteI pulled the plug on my own blog about a year ago. At times I've missed it, but not often. Understand your decision, but I'll miss your insights anyway. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteThank you, thank you, thank you!
ReplyDeleteMay sunny days always be yours to enjoy during the trying times ahead.
Merci!
So long.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I enjoyed your wit and the way you shone a light in those dark corners that the media missed. I hate to see the blog go, but can well understand that there comes a time when the effort outweighs the rewards.
ReplyDeleteFare well good friend. I will miss your commentary, as will many others. I hope you can get in a few more trips to here and there, while there are still beaches and coral to enjoy.
ReplyDeleteI understand, though you will be missed
ReplyDeleteThanks so very much for all you've done.
ReplyDeleteI'll miss stopping by.
Best wishes and Happy Trails to you.
Adios my friend. You brought a smile to my face many times. It was a pleasure reading your take. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks Charles.
ReplyDeleteHow horrible to lose your funny sarcastic biting ascorbic wonderful wonderful blog. i hope you enjoy your time away from here. your gift was very much appreciated by all those before me. so few have said it so well.
ReplyDeleteplease keep writing sometimes.
I too, am saddened to see you go - but I fully understand, thank your for your work and your contributions, and wish you well.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
ditto about sorely missed
ReplyDeleteI am thankful that your enjoyable writing meant enough that I shall greatly miss it, may take some time before I can bear to delete the bookmark. So few witty folks about this days that it was a relief almost, a coming home, to find you all these years ago.
ReplyDeleteMy gratitude is deep and wide for the privilege.
say it aint so
ReplyDeleteWow. I've been reading your first-rate mordant jocularity for years and years. One of my few and diminishing pleasures on the tubes. Fare well, ckm. I'll click out of sheer habit for some time.
ReplyDeleteCalm down. Quiet please. Pay attention. There will be an announcement soon regarding our service.
ReplyDeleteAs Bartle and James used to say, "...and thank you for your support."
CKM
I had to double check that this wasn't dated April 1st. I've lost track of the years that I've been reading you; and the other blogs I've dropped in the meantime. A heartfelt thankyou, long wished and never said, whether you keep at it or not. Some assembly is indeed required.
ReplyDeleteWell, if there was any April Firstiness about the announcement, it seems to have been on me...
ReplyDeleteCKM
I echo what many have said here, fare well CKM. I've only been here for a relatively short time but have absorbed the 'pith' and the patterns of what was presented here.
ReplyDeletePersonally this blog has gotten me through the same hourly 'shift' work, the type of jobs which are all that are left as well documented by the many SAR 'snappy' / biting witticisms on the topic.
--
Some here have written about 'what to do now'.
Well, for anyone 'meta research' oriented, i.e. doing what CKM does (albeit perhaps less skilled at the witty summaries), here are a few suggestions:
IF anyone was 'interested' in compiling SAR to look for 'meta patterns' and tags, this would actually be a good project. So, I'll be personally starting back at the blog's inception and going back through.
Basically: we all know everything's going to shit, it's really a waste of our time to be too depressed about it ??
BUT what's more interesting is gathering data and looking for patterns.
SO if we have any 'programmer' or tech/ web savvy types, I suggest you gather all the tags in a tag cloud (but not those 'useless' ones that tell you nothing and look fancy) and begin looking for patterns.
Just like the 'Decline of the Empire' blog (http://www.declineoftheempire.com/), this is a good 'testament' to what is going on here. I see Demetrius from 'The Cynical Tendency' also chimed in.
So if any of you are serious/ 'actual' researchers let's get going with this and I'd like to see what any of you can 'gather' and 'distill' from this body of work . . .
I have enjoyed SAR and will miss it if it the proprietor decides to move on to other pursuits.
ReplyDeleteAnony 8:25PM
ReplyDeleteI think - although I'm not technically savvy enough to be sure - I'm greatly flattered by your suggested project. But surely there are better things to do with your time.
CKM
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ReplyDeleteYou are achieving so much more than you perhaps imagine,
And to leave with an economics reference - ROI
Noooooooooooooooooooooo
And further comment I have been coming here and reading for many, many years and I will greatly miss this blog.
ReplyDeleteIt is one of three or four sites that I have checked on an almost daily basis for as long as I can remember
So long and thanks for all the pith
ReplyDeleteJust a quick note on the scope of what I'd be collecting. These would be things like - issue 7363:
TRENDS AND HISTORICAL EVENTS
# Subprime housing crises/ mortgage crisis
# B & B’s: Banks and bailouts
# The rise of: Tar shale mining (and now Fracking)
# CLIMATE watch: Kyoto, 383 ppm
So I'd be looking at / scouring for 'interesting' data points.
Do you keep the original links to articles by any chance (although they've probably gone by now). But by any chance did you save them 'offline' when you first read them? (I'm guessing not).
--
RE:
"But surely there are better things to do with your time."
Haha, well as Dave Cohen on DOTE writes, it is important to 'keep busy' no matter what in the face of all this 'muck':
http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2013/03/what-would-schopenhauer-think.html
So I'll let you know if anything 'interesting' arises out of this in my own research notes as you'd probably be interested to see what can be 'distilled' from your body of work which is now upwards of 10 years worth of (in my terms) data collection and meta summaries containing clues as to 'WTF is going on' out there/ in larger terms beyond what people will engage with in immediate 'day to day,' 'what effects my immediately self-interest' terms.
thank you!!!! you have a gift for picking the most important bits out of the incessant babble. i will miss your humour. a sad day, though not without it's silver lining.
ReplyDeletenow my morning has no more excuses to delay working on my personal escape plan: retiring to my sailboat in warmer waters.
good luck to you, and keep on having fun!!