Broken

Well, we had rain on and off yesterday.  Misty rain.  Drizzly rain.  Steady rain.  There were no cloudbursts and nothing torrential, when it falls in sheets across the highway.  Temps stayed in the lower 70s (F).  We have the same forecast for today.  Tomorrow things are supposed to brighten up, however if our long range forecast stands, it looks as though summer's quickly moving out of the picture.

And how can I describe yesterday?  There were highs and lows.  The highs were good and the lows weren't really that low, more like a heavy sigh that says "you've got to be kidding me."

The high:  I've mentioned how my neighborhood Giant supermarket was out of walnuts, so I went to my brand new BJs wholesaled discount store.  Their walnuts are... our you ready for this?  2 pounds for $9.99.  Giant's price was $7.49 for one pound.  So I bought 4 pounds for $18 and change.  That should last me for a while.

The low:  At 12:55 PM UPS dropped off my new printer.  I moved the box into the writing room and began unpacking. Once unpacked, I moved the printer to its proper place and began the process of pulling off all the tape according to the instructions.  When I lifted the scanner lid to remove the foam insert I discovered that the scanner glass was broken, and said, "you have got to be kidding me."  Mind you, there were no obscenities.  Not even a simple, "oh, shit."  What I did do was go to my laptop and start a chat with their customer service.  That led to a phone call, which led to an email with pictures.  The printer has been packed up and is now sitting in my living room.  Xerox will let me know when it's going to be picked up.  I was told the process will take between 3 and 7 days.  Here's a pic.  I'm thinking that sometime during transit it was dropped.

Anyway, I ended up spending little time on social media because my focus was on my printer issues.  Honestly, it seems to me that yesterday was a low profile day for the Orange Anus.  About the only thing worth mentioning was Just  Dance Vance and Petey Hegseth getting booed and hissed at while walking through Union Station.  There was so much unmitigated bile being thrown in their direction.  There were people loudly shouting "couch fucker!"  Can we talk about misreading the room.

And this just in:  Orangie's overall approval rating has dropped to 39%.  That's just his overall rating.  I haven't seen any specifics yet on how that breaks out.  Last week is approval rating on the economy was down to 37%; that has probably dropped since he's evidently pulling a TACO with some of the European tariffs.  His ratings are in a death spiral because he's an idiot.  His bragging about being a great negotiator got the carpet ripped out from under it because of his Alaskan fiasco.  He left the European leaders sitting for an hour so he could go call his boss and that's not good.  Everybody needs to start reminding themselves that everything Orangie touches dies.

MAGA: Husks of Humanity

 Well, we have the drizzles and according to the forecast, they will be hanging around for most of the day.  That's okay.  Temps are only supposed to climb into the mid 70s (F).  I guess this should be expected since Autumn is only a month away.  Though, if my memory serves me correctly, the sunny days of summer used to last well into September.  Of course, our cloud cover might be the edge of Erin's skirt as she moves up the eastern seaboard.

Yesterday was a good day and a bad day.  Good in that many chores were completed.  I even got a decent upper body workout done in the afternoon.  Bad in that I'm out of walnuts.  They are part of my breakfast.  In my book, nuts are nuts.  Since they are grown and not manufactured there's little difference between one nut and another.  For this reason I usually buy store brand or generic nuts. Yesterday, my local Giant supermarket was out of store brand nuts.  Fisher's nuts were the only ones left on their shelves and they are twice as expensive, $16.49 for a 12 ounces.  So, after I finish writing this I'll be driving over to my local BJs to buy their store brand which is considerably less expensive:  $12.99 for 32 ounces.  That's what I call a deal.

My new printer arrives today.  I had thought of going out and buying a printer table but have decided to use what I have on hand.  I still have to move a few pieces of furniture, but that shouldn't take me long.  Here's the tile I'm using for a table top, but it's going to relocated next the big aquarium in the writing room.

And yesterday we learned, that's if we're going to believe anything that drips from the mouth of the Orange Anus, that slavery wasn't really that bad.  Those thinking slavery was truly terrible are Woke.  In case you haven't realized it yet, in the MAGA world Woke is synonymous with Compassionate.  They may feel passion, but not compassion, and half of the time I think their passion is simply synonymous with greed.  They have a passion for money, and a passion for selfishness, and a passion for disliking those who actually feel compassion.  They are simply husks of humanity who love to pass judgement.  They don't lack the ability to understand, they avoid it.  They feel sorry, but only for themselves and those just like themselves.  These people have always existed, it's just that right now they've managed to get themselves onto the main stage.  They do not know there time there is limited.

Finally, Dan Bongino seems to have disappeared.  He was is the right wing podcaster who took a job as the assistant to Kash Patel, Director of the FBI.  It seems Danny found out the terrible truth about how often Orangie is in the Epstein files.  Now he's gone quiet.  Reports are he's going to be leaving the administration completely.  If this were Russia, I warn him to be careful because over there getting close to an open window is dangerous.

And then there was Liz

 And so, my 2nd weekend of the week begins.  The weather is sunny.  No rain is expected today.  The forecast for tomorrow is not so good.  Rain is expected.  And on Sunday as well, though I'll be working so it's not going to bother me.

My new printer should be arriving today.  This is a good thing.  The one still works, somewhat, so I'm probably going to keep using it for odd things until the toner cartridges are empty.  While we all wish our 'electronics' would last forever, they don't.  The yellow Samsung gaming laptop I bought, again, quite a number of years ago (9 to be precise), is having problems with its HDMI port.  This is the laptop I have attached to the big screen TV and is used for my Tacx rides.  There are workarounds, however.  

And, of course, last night was the first Prime-Time hearing of the January 6 committee.  I spent some time looking for any kind of ratings information, none was available.  I did find a lot of commentary regarding Fox's continued attempt to foist The Big Lie on its viewers.  Someone pointed out that Tucker Carlson did the first 60 minutes of his show without a commercial break, indicating Fox is so desperate they were willing to lose money.

As for the hearings, I watched them.  I was impressed by so very much.  America got to watch and hear Billy Barr say the election lies were "bullshit."   I thought the juxtaposition of Trump's speech with the clips of the mob breaking into the capital buildings quite compelling.  I was impressed with Liz Cheney; she no doubt made her dad proud last evening.  Her comment to Republicans on how someday Trump will be gone, but their dishonor will always remain was stupendous.  I got a real chortle when she mentioned that Scott Perry, a Republican from Pennsylvania, had, after January 6, requested a pardon from Trump.  His spokesperson quickly called that comment ludicrous, however, she wouldn't have made it without proof.  The testimony by the documentarian was fascinating, pointing out for the first time how The Proud Boys and The Oath Keepers were working in conjunction with each other.  The police officer's testimony was riveting as she compared the insurrection to a warzone.  

Last night's hearing is not going to change the minds of those who turned to Fox, it was never intended to.  It was for the vast majority of Americans, Democrat, Centrist, Independent, and level-headed Republicans, many of whom are just beginning to realize that the party of Trump has morphed into something that is craven for power.  Conservatives don't want to make America great; they just want to dictate how the rest of America lives its lives.

Tonight

 Well, yesterday turned out to be a do nothing sort of day.  I did do laundry and some yardwork, but not much.  This is what usually happens when I stay up late watching movies.  These old bones aren't used to my burning the midnight oil.  On the plus side, the dogs and I took a nice, long nap yesterday afternoon.  

So, what other films did I watch on Tuesday night.  Well, of course one of the was X - the Unknown, and the other was a remastered Blu-ray of Help, a very old Beatles movie.  Help was an extremely popular movie, one of very few films I saw twice in a movie theater, but from my understanding was not a lot of fun for the Beatles.  Life was becoming very complicated for the most popular band in the world and neither the world, nor the Beatles were ready for it.  Here's the only full length trailer I could find.

I ordered a new printer.  The 13-year-old HP laser printer downstairs doesn't handle Windows 11, even though I updated the drivers.  My laptop, still Windows 10, had serious issues printing to it last fall that were so bad I worked with Microsoft to try and fix them, it would only print 'current page.'  Back when I purchased it, I remember the salesclerk telling me that printers had gotten so inexpensive, when they went bad, people simply upgraded.

And, of course, tonight is the night the January 6 committee goes prime time, sans Fox, and Fox is scared.  Laura Ingraham spit out some sort of nonsense saying the network 'caters to their audience.'  Doesn't she admit that's an admission of guilt?  Republicans are scared.  Rubio spit out the broken record comment "no one is going to watch," thought I don't doubt for a second what he's saying is true those who supported the insurrection.  They are terrified because this hearing is going to be everywhere... except Fox, which is not good for that entertainment network.

And Tonight is just going to be the beginning.  True, there will be MAGAs that will call these hearings lies.  There are Evangelicals who will deny everything, since the truth will mean that... well, they will never admit that God didn't choose Donald Trump to give them what they want, that would be a denial of their faith.  Tonight will not go well for either of these groups.  In fact, for some it might be the beginning of the end. 

 

The Party of Selfishness and Greed

 I ended up taking a personal day yesterday, not because of my back but rather I knew they were forecasting rain today, my regularly scheduled day off.  My lawn was in desperate need of being mowed and Justin was unavailable. 

An hour was also spent with Microsoft - printer issues, 2nd time in a week.  This tech seems to believe there's something wrong with the current document I'm working on, i.e. The Body in Repose, that keeps me from printing select pages.  However, I tried printing select pages from The Body in the Well and had the same issue.  He chose not to take that into account.  I can print off the entire document, or I can print individual pages.  What I like to do is print off chapters, that, however, is not happening.  Feel free to utter an obscenity or two, like me.

And I did buy myself a new, little printer table.  Not so cute, but useful.

Perhaps the most unnewsworthy bit from a 'tell all' book on Loser #45 is the bit not even making headlines: that Trump told Putin he'd be tough on him while the camera rolled.  This is from Stephanie Grisham's new 'ode to evil' attempt to cash in on her year as a press secretary, a press secretary who didn't hold a single press conference.  Ouch.  Notice, there's no link.  She's basically prostituting that year, taking notes without making a single comment on what she now claims was going on behind the public's back.  Do you notice a trend here?  Republicans prostituting their time with the Orange Anus in order to grow their own bank account.  But than, they are the party of Selfishness and Greed, so there's no real surprise here.

One size does not fit all

Well, it's Wednesday and the schedules are out for the first week in January... and I'm off for the first 3 days.  Now, ain't that nice.
I replaced the toner cartridge in my printer - I tend to print a lot of things off.  They included an mailing envelope for me to return the cartridge... it's way too small.

Why include something that's not going to fit my cartridge.  Size, you know, has always been very, very important.  This means I'll have to drive it in to Staples.  Well, that's going to have to wait until the holiday traffic is passed.
I printed off the first 60 pages of my next project for my editor.
My Mom had a policy with  Met Life which was supposed to pay for her funeral.  Well, I paid for it out of what was left of her savings.  Met Life has been slow.  Then yesterday my brother sent me a text and said he, too, was listed as a beneficiary.  Shit.  That meant both he and I were going to be getting checks, a bit of a complication since there are 3 of us.  I called Met Life and was told there were actually 3 beneficiaries, though they couldn't tell me who the 3rd was.  I guessed my sister.  I gave her their 800 number and she called them.  Yepper.  She is the 3rd.  If this policy had truly been intended to pay for her funeral expenses, 3 checks would have been a bit of a complication.  I don't like complications, you know?  3 people writing 3 checks to pay for one bill.
Anyway, my blog yesterday on Camp Paradise got massive amounts of hits.  I had no idea so many people had an interest in blond Russian hookers...  Of course, it may just have been the Idiot Jerk in the White House.  I don't now, maybe he was waiting for one of them to pee.