Frozen

Okay, I’ve just about had it with winter.

• My sinuses are in full revolt. My nose is all “thanks but it’s January and time for me to be more clogged than the Tip O’Neill tunnel during evening rush hour.”

• I’m running through moisturizer like RFK Jr. eats through roadkill. Seriously, I drink a ridiculous amount of water and have a humidifier going 24/7, yet my skin still has a texture that makes Death Valley jealous.

• Though it MIGHT reach as high as 39º fahrenheit today (versus last week’s sub-zero horseshit), there’s still a ton of snow and ice along the seawall path. MAYBE it’ll all melt so’s I can walk outside this afternoon but I kind of doubt it. I’m quite keen on staying upright—not slipping, sliding, and falling on my delicate fucking head.

Luckily, I’ve a recumbent elliptical so I can do my cardio exercising inside BUT that does fuck-all for improving my wonk-ass balance and building up the muscles around my ankles and calves. Sure, I could go down to the mall for a walk BUT most people go around unmasked. The chance of catching the flu, COVID or pneumonia doesn’t thrill me in the least. I have enough health obstacles without adding those into the mix. I could do laps of the house BUT my home is small. “Tiny” would not be a descriptive stretch.

Wollaston Beach in ice

What to do? Extra PT exercises, the elliptical, and Ten will check the melt sitch on the seawall at noon.

A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.
~ Carl Reiner

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ode to the West Wind

In the winter she curls up around a good book and dreams away the cold.
~ Ben Aaronovitch, Broken Homes

Sounds excellent but reading all day in my comfy chair doesn’t rebuild my surgery banjaxed physical strength and endurance. Otherwise, that’d be totes awesome. The other problem is that I finished my good book—Redshirts by John Scalzi. The next library book (currently on hold) isn’t due to hit my Kindle for another two weeks. Woe-as-hell is me!

Winter is not a season, it's an occupation.
~ Sinclair Lewis

Andrew Wyeth—Winter Carnival

It’s work—hard fucking work. I want spring NOW, goddammit

No animal, according to the rules of animal-etiquette, is ever expected to do anything strenuous, or heroic, or even moderately active during the off-season of winter.
~ Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows 

This as it should be.

The problem with winter sports is that - follow me closely here - they generally take place in winter.
~ Dave Barry

To appreciate the beauty of a snowflake, it is necessary to stand out in the cold.
~ Aristotle

Thanks, I’ll just take your word for it. There are 66 more days until spring.

Words to Know

This is a short vocabulary list to help me understand and follow along during the next four years.

Kakistocracy
     noun
government by its least suitable or competent citizens.

Just look at the sleeping toddler’s nominees—alcoholic, rapist Pete Hegseth, long time heroin addict and roadkill connoisseur RFK Jr., Russian asset Tulsi Gabbard, snake oil salesweasel Mehmet Oz, fossil fuels hero Doug Burgum, etc.

Plutocracy
     noun
government by the wealthy

That’s be Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and more.

Totalitarianism
     noun
government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state.

Project 2025

Despotism
     noun
oppressive absolute power and authority exerted by government : rule by a despot

Did I mention Project 2025 already?

Theocracy
     noun
a system of government in which “religious” assholes rule in the name of their god.

Project 2025 would serve to further crystalize and federalize the Christian nationalist agenda. The 900-plus page “Mandate for Leadership” book of policy proposals includes multiple concerning elements from a religious freedom perspective. Project 2025 would expand upon the Trump administration’s efforts to expand religious exemptions and gut civil rights protections for people of minority faiths, women, and people who are LGBTQ, which CAP documented with the ACLU and Movement Advancement Project in 2020. (source)

Charlatanism
     noun
The act of making usually showy pretenses to knowledge or ability : fraud 

The lying sack of warthog feces continues to lie and lie and lie.

Faustian bargain
a pact whereby a person trades something of supreme moral or spiritual importance, such as personal values or the soul, for some worldly or material benefit, such as knowledge, power, or riches. Also called a deal with the Devil.

Has Fetterman made a Faustian bargain? Is he the new Manchin/Sinema? Pretty much looks like it. Who else will sell their soul, bend the knee, and turn against their constituents for Captain Crazypants and his illegal immigrant co-prez, the Space Nazi.

America is the only instance in history of a nation which has passed from barbarism to decay without passing through the stage of civilization.
~ attributed to Ogden Nash, Oscar Wilde, a French newspaper columnist, and others

Recently Deceased Befouled Croutons

How do you befoul a cube of stale bread? All you need do is douse it in a bit of feral cat piss, leave it in the hot July sun for a day—et voila, you now have a stinky, soggy, ruined crouton.

Here in this country of the damned (formerly known as the United States of America) we now have a few freshly dead befouled croutons.

1) Remember the Pizzagate idiot—Edgar Maddison Welch? He’s the gun-humping, gullible imbecile who shot up a restaurant because he’d heard they were running a child abuse ring in the basement (a basement they don’t have). Welch got out of jail but *oopsie* pulled a gun on a cop at a traffic stop. Yep, idiot boy is now a smelly, dead crouton.

Welch went into the Comet Ping Pong brandishing a three-foot-long rifle with a loaded revolver on his hip. Numerous children were in the facility at the time, and both customers and employees ran from the pizzeria as Welch looked around, at one point firing into a closet and damaging a computer. No one was injured and he eventually surrendered to police. (source)

2) Anita Bryant, the bouffant headed, anti-human rights campaigner, faux “christian,” Florida orange juice shill, much deserved pie-in-the-face recipient, and frequent butt of jokes died in December. She was 84.

I only mention it but yesterday was The Amazing Bob’s birthday. Had he lived, he would have been 83. How in fuck’s name were TAB and Anita from the same generation? While he was protesting with Vietnam Veterans Against the War she was singing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" during the half-time show of 1971’s  Super Bowl as well as viciously promoting discrimination against gay people.

I’m surprised this failed pool of shellacked demon spooge made it such to an advanced age. I would’ve thought that all the hate and hypocrisy flowing though her veins would have taken her out much earlier.

Her reputation all but synonymous with intolerance, her show business career evaporated, and by the late 1990s she had filed for bankruptcy. (source)

GOOD!

3) Not an American but still a vile racist, a Holocaust denier who promoted putting people with AIDS into concentration camps—Jean-Marie Le Pen. He was 96. Fer fuck’s sake, why does such a disgusting, rotted example of humanity get to live so long when good people like Rachel Corrie, Tomas Young, Rev. George Washington Lee, and so many other proponents of peace and justice don’t?

In the hours after his death, hundreds of people took to the streets in cities across France to celebrate his demise, singing, letting off fireworks and making toasts with champagne. (source)

Just imagine the worldwide celebrations when Trump kicks the bucket. It may become our next national holiday.

Water Worlds

Do you remember the movie Waterworld? It came out in 1995.

In a future where the polar ice-caps have melted and Earth is almost entirely submerged, a mutated mariner fights starvation and outlaw "smokers," and reluctantly helps a woman and a young girl try to find dry land. (source)

His mutation? Gills and webbed feet. Evolution happens—maybe he was born that way.

Essentially, it's Mad Max with the opposite problem: too much water instead of a barren Earth. (source)

The critics were absolute savages. Yes, the flick was flawed BUT it was damned entertaining. What brings this up today?

Scientists say we should look for three key ingredients that make life possible: liquid water, chemistry, and energy. I came across an article (from 2022) on NASA’s site about a couple interesting planets.

A team led by researchers at the University of Montreal has found evidence that two exoplanets orbiting a red dwarf star are "water worlds," where water makes up a large fraction of the entire planet. (source) 

The two planets are in the Kepler-138 planetary system. Kepler-138 is a red dwarf star (not to be confused with Red Dwarf the British teevee series) which is about 218 light-years from us. I only mention it but, if anyone wants to go find out if Kepler-138 c and Kepler-138 d are in fact water worlds, they better pack a lot of snacks and a few changes of underwear.

Closer to home, Saturn’s moon Titan.

This mammoth moon is the only moon in the solar system with a dense atmosphere, and it’s the only world besides Earth that has standing bodies of liquid, including rivers, lakes and seas, on its surface. Like Earth, Titan’s atmosphere is primarily nitrogen, plus a small amount of methane. It is the sole other place in the solar system known to have an earthlike cycle of liquids raining from clouds, flowing across its surface, filling lakes and seas, and evaporating back into the sky (akin to Earth’s water cycle). Titan is also thought to have a subsurface ocean of water. (source)

There’s Jupiter’s moon Ganymede:

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has found the best evidence yet for an underground saltwater ocean on Ganymede. The ocean is thought to have more water than all the water on Earth's surface. Ganymede’s ocean is estimated to be 60 miles (100 kilometers) thick – 10 times deeper than Earth's ocean – and is thought to be buried under a 95-mile- (150-kilometer-) thick crust of mostly ice. Identifying liquid water is crucial in the search for habitable worlds beyond Earth, and in the search for life as we know it. (source)

We also have Callisto, Jupiter’s second largest moon.

Once thought to be a dead, inactive rocky body, data gathered by the Galileo spacecraft in the 1990s indicate Callisto may have a salty ocean beneath its icy surface. More recent research reveals that this ocean may be located deeper beneath the surface than previously thought, or may not exist at all. If an ocean is present, it’s possible the ocean is interacting with rock on Callisto, creating a potential habitat for life. (source)

Also, a paltry 100 light years from good ol’ beleaguered Earth is TOI-1452 b. Astronomers think it could be an ocean planet—all water, all the time.

IF there's life on these moons and planets, do they look like octopuses and squids? Are they smarter than humans? Yeah, I know, that wouldn't take much.

I strongly believe we should send Musk, Bezos, and Zuck out to the Draco constellation and the Kepler-138 system to investigate. If they’re pressed for time, Saturn’s a mere 943.99 million miles from us. Better yet, Jupiter is only 397.38 million miles away. Hell’s bells, a walk up to my neighborhood packy would take longer (maybe that’s just me though).


Speaking of water (and we most certainly were), Trump said he wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico after himself. Unfortunately Bay of Pigs is already taken.

So, You Wanna Be Friends

Most of us want/need friends. I sure as hell do. It’s necessary to have one’s needs, wishes, and rules in place though. It’s not enough to just work in the same cube farm, attend the same yoga sessions or take the same classes.

Some of my rules and stipulations:

1) If you make food you are required to share. This especially includes:

• Sweet potato fries
• Cookies (chocolate chip, peanut butter, gingerbread, snicker doodles, ANY kind of frosting filled sandwich cookie, etc.)
• Roasted brussel sprouts
• Falafel
• Black bean burgers
• Spanakopita
• Guacamole
• Spinach and feta scones

…did I mention cookies yet?

2) Must be comfortable with long stretches of hanging out together whilst doing nothing in particular.

3) You need to be in possession of a deep love for our feline overlords or, at least, a finely tuned respect and appreciation.

 4) Having the same taste in books, music, movies or art is not essential but overlaps certainly don’t hurt.  

5) A fully developed creative conversational sense is absolutely necessary.
     Fer instance:

• If you could be a god of something, what would it be? I’d be torn between music and visual arts. Maybe I could be Apollo on even days and Minerva on odd days?

•  You’re starting your adult life over again. This time out you’re financially supported by a wealthy benefactor (with no strings attached). What would you do for work? Me? I’d move to Vermont—maybe just outside Brattleboro—and start an alpaca farm. I’d eventually open a shop where I’d sell alpaca yarn as well as locally created alpaca yarn creations—sweaters, full body suits, spaceships…you know, the usual knit products.

• Remember An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten? If you could, who would you Dexter and why? No, of course we’d never actually do this—that’s not the point. Having an imagination is. 

I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.
    ~ Clarence Darrow 

6) Sense of humor—gotta have it. Friends don’t need to be a reincarnation of Robin Williams or Dorothy Parker. It can’t hurt though. If you can’t be funny, be verbally imaginative. 

7) Kindness is required in your honesty. Yes, you can be blunt as fuck without being thoughtless or cruel. Don’t be an empathy devoid dick. 

8) If you vote for anyone in the Republican Party, we’ll never achieve more than a nonviolent, nodding acquaintanceship. Why not? You’ve voted against my ability to exist as a free, equal, human on this Earth. I’m not happy about that to say the very least.

Likewise, if you’re so far Left that you refused to vote for the Black woman because something, something, PALESTINE…come back when you’ve grown up and understand reality more fully. I may fully support your cause or point of view BUT protest votes or not voting have given us four more years of Hell, minimum. Also, you’ve not done the Palestinians or Ukrainians any favors with your purity protest.

 

9) You don’t have to love science fiction but, honestly now, with John Scalzi, Martha Wells, Philip K. Dick, Charlie Jane Anders, Margaret Atwood, Catherynne M. Valente, etc., etc. how could you not?! Okay, we don’t need to read the same books but being able to appreciate (on some level) and discuss each other’s literary indulgences is a good thing.

10) Remembering my birthday isn’t important but my surgery dates are. More precisely, knowing about and acknowledging my battles with this stupid, tumor riddled skin suit is important.

Witty or otherwise fun pre-op encouragement is WAY better than wishing this old, beleaguered broad a happy birthday.

I suppose that's my top ten rules for friends. What are yours?

The Unknown

What can we safely ignore and what should we be truly concerned about?

Which bucket does the Tangerine Twat’s threats to take over Greenland, Canada and Panama fall in?

First, Canada:

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, "there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States," in the face of continuing threats of annexation by President-elect Donald Trump...
     ~~~
"Canada will never be the 51st state. Period," Pierre Poilivere, the Conservative Party leader who is likely to become Prime Minister after Canada's October election, said in a post on X. "We are a great and independent country."

The sentiment was echoed by Liberal Mélanie Joy, Canada's minister of foreign affairs, in a post on X Tuesday.

"President-elect Trump’s comments show a complete lack of understanding of what makes Canada a strong country," Joy said. "Our economy is strong. Our people are strong. We will never back down in the face of threats.” (source)

The senile orange slug isn’t thinking (I could stop this sentence right here and it would be complete and accurate) of a military invasion of Canada. Nope, he’s figuring economic pressure would be enough to make them cave. Tariffs. That little ploy, which he doesn’t understand AT ALL, will backfire on him (and us) in much the same way as his death dealing non-response to COVID. 

Greenland?
Speedball Jr made a publicity stunt visit to some diner in Greenland (with Charlie Kirk of all homunculoid, lipless idiots), presumably to get a RAH-RAH-we-want-to-be-part-of-the-US bullshit clip to flood the airwaves. You know, he needs to get us all on board with going to war with Denmark and NATO in order to pad rich people’s bank accounts.

… Trump called in to Junior’s phone and he was put on speaker in the Greenland restaurant. He explained to the 10 people there that it is important for the US to take over their land because “you see the people in the ships sailing around, and they’re not the right ships. So we need security. Our country needs it and the whole world because you’re so strategically located.”

… But after we take your country over we are happy to give you a job at our new Trump Tower Greenland! (source) 

A) The man is absolutely ratfuckingly batshit but we knew that already. (also, the phrase should now be trumpshit insane)
B) WHAT does any of this have to do with bringing down the price of groceries, gas, housing or the immigrant “problem” that he’s always banging on about? You know, those are issues that supposedly got him elected. (as opposed to his usual baked in racism and misogyny)

I only mention it but Greenland is not so keen on being part of the US. Of fucking course they’re not! We’re about to become even more of a trash-fire, plutocratic, totalitarian regime than ever.

Greenland's prime minister, Múte Bourup Egede, responded to Donald Trump's remarks in a statement saying, "Greenland is ours. We are not for sale, and we will never be for sale. We must not lose our long fight for freedom.” (source)

I TOTALLY understand Prime Minister. Like, absolutely and completely.

As for Panama, like Greenland, Captain Crazypants says he hasn’t ruled out the use military force.

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino…shot down the idea of the United States' taking back authority over it. "Every square meter of the canal belongs to Panama and will continue to be so," he said. (source)

I suspect that Trump’s puppet masters are egging on his most moneygrubbing, violence-cheering, egomaniacal tendencies. Why? To cover up what they’re doing in the shadows—destroying the Constitution and every damn step this country has ever made toward us becoming a real, true democracy. Project 2025 is here.

Do any of these assholes think that young men and women are eager and frothing at the mouth to go to war just to line the pockets of the already über wealthy? How many of us will die for Trump and his puppet master’s ego wanking greed?

Lifelogging

What in Bast’s name is lifelogging? Is it related to logrolling or weblogging or video blogging? No, yes (it can be), and yes.

Wikipedia tells me that it’s a personal record of one's daily life in a varying amount of detail, for a variety of purposes.

The record contains a comprehensive dataset of a human's activities. The data could be used to increase knowledge about how people live their live. In recent years, some lifelog data has been automatically captured by wearable technology or mobile devices.

Am I a lifelogger? I suppose to a meager extent I am. After all, I often record details of my adventures, struggles, and general thoughts right here on this very blog.

I do keep a daily somewhat detailed record of how much I exercise. Why? To give myself credit for work done. I’m prone to thinking that I’m never doing anywhere near enough. The log shows me that I am (how far did I elliptical or walk and how many reps of PT exercises I’ve accomplished) OR that I need to get off my ass and move.

 I used to keep an account of my food and drink intake. I did this in order to have an accurate record of how I was doing in my effort to get my food and alcohol consumption under control. When consistent healthier intake levels became a habit, the norm, I stopped.

Beyond that, no—I wouldn’t consider myself a true, full-blown lifelogger. I’m certainly not in the same galaxy as:

Robert Shields, who recorded 24 years of his life, practically minute to minute, from 1972 to 1996. Yes, this included going to the can (and the details of all that), how many ounces of Campbell’s soup he prepped and consumed, the act of typing his diary, and more minutia.

Steve Mann who’s been designing, building, and wearing some form or another of wearable computing system (i.e., smartwatches, fitness trackers, web-enabled glasses, etc.) for more than 35 years.

Jennifer Ringley who, in 1996, set up a webcam in her college dorm room, It took pics every five minutes 24/7, no matter what she was doing. She shut down the "Jennicam" on New Year’s Day 2004.

 There are and have been others. Are the folks like Shields, Mann, and Ringley responsible for the onslaught of execrable reality teevee? Would we have Big Brother, Keeping Up with the Kardashians or Stars on Mars without them? What about The Truman Show?

He doesn't know it, but everything in Truman Burbank's (Jim Carrey) life is part of a massive TV set. Executive producer Christof (Ed Harris) orchestrates "The Truman Show," a live broadcast of Truman's every move captured by hidden cameras. Cristof tries to control Truman's mind, even removing his true love, Sylvia (Natascha McElhone), from the show and replacing her with Meryl (Laura Linney). As Truman gradually discovers the truth, however, he must decide whether to act on it. (source)

I loved that movie.

I couldn’t (ever, never) say the same thing about reality teevee shows. Those are nothing but cheap-ass bucko making machines by the money guys. They can hire fewer, less experienced writers, create no-frills sets, and feature "real people”—i.e., untalented or otherwise unemployable actors, washed up personalities (hello Sarah Palin!), Hollywood hopefuls looking for a break and complete freaks. People who will work for less dough.

Nope. If I want to spend even a minute of my life with  egomaniacal narcissists, I can read the news reports of the incoming Musk/Trump co-presidency.

In Search Of

Llama in shades—completely unrelated to anything

I’m looking for my sense of humor (warped though it maybe be). I’m sure I left it around here somewhere.

If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.
~ Mahatma Gandhi

If you find it hard to laugh at yourself, I would be happy to do it for you.
~ Groucho Marx

If you could choose one characteristic that would get you through life, choose a sense of humor.
~ Jennifer Jones

Laughter is an instant vacation.
~ Milton Berle

I think the next best thing to solving a problem is finding some humor in it.
~ Frank A. Clark

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
~ William James

Portrait of my brain

You can tell how smart people are by what they laugh at.
~ Tina Fey

The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living.
~ Viktor E. Frankl

Humor is just another defense against the universe.
~ Mel Brooks

Laughing stock: cattle with a sense of humor.
~ Steven Wright

A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It’s jolted by every pebble on the road.
~ Henry Ward Beecher

When humor go’s, there go’s civilization.
~ Erma Bombeck

My bathroom door

Nonsense wakes up the brain cells. And it helps develop a sense of humor, which is awfully important in this day and age. Humor has a tremendous place in this sordid world. It’s more than just a matter of laughing. If you can see things out of whack, then you can see how things can be in whack.
~ Dr. Seuss 

Humor is by far the most significant activity of the human brain.
~ Edward de Bono

Don’t wish me happiness - I don’t expect to be happy it’s gotten beyond that, somehow. Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor - I will need them all.
~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.
~ e. e. cummings

The more I live, the more I think that humor is the saving sense.
~ Jacob August Riis

He who laughs, lasts.
~ Mary Pettibone Poole

I think the scariest person in the world is the person with no sense of humor.
~ Michael J. Fox 

Comedy is acting out optimism.
~ Robin Williams

Next to power without honor, the most dangerous thing in the world is power without humor.
~ Eric Sevareid

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.
~ Erma Bombeck

Everything is funny, as long as it’s happening to somebody else.
~ Will Rogers

I have seen what a laugh can do. It can transform almost unbearable tears into something bearable, even hopeful.
~ Bob Hope

Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.
~ James Thurber

Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.
~ E. B. White

I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t laugh.
~ Maya Angelou