The starter’s pistol cracks, the flag drops … and they’re off! Another lap around the calendar has begun.
Herself and I called it quits long before midnight after a New Year’s Eve feast of Alaskan salmon (h/t Matt Wiebe), roasted potatoes, steamed broccoli, and salad. French rosé for her; fake St. Pauli Girl for me, my Clausthaler Dry Hopped being unavailable anywhere at any price.
The celebratory pyrotechnics likewise beat the clock. I was hearing fireworks and gunfire 8-ish as I unplugged the holiday lights. Burqueños do love their pistolas, and will discharge them at the sky if no other, better target presents itself.
This continued into the night until a final, furious fusillade awakened me and 2021 more or less simultaneously.
This morning I checked the property for bodies, but found nothing, no shell casings, no blood trails. Herself inspected the Vault and found a deposit of $1,200 from Uncle Sammy, that senile, profligate, racist old fool. We are not wealthy, but neither are we desperate, and so we will be redirecting these funds to someone who is. What a colossal waste of time and energy. Somebody could have been spending this cash months ago on food, rent, cartuchos, whatever.
Meanwhile, the Sedition Party is gearing up for more mischief at King’s Landing. This is the thing that never changes with the calendar. In power, they can’t govern, won’t even try. Out of power, they see to it that nobody else can govern, either. This is why small businesses close and public works crumble and people like us get free money.
And yet every New Year’s Eve the People spill out into the streets, shooting into the heavens. One wonders when they might choose some other targets of opportunity down here on earth.
While we wait, anybody making New Year’s resolutions that don’t involve overthrowing the government? Sound off in comments.
Mad Blog Media 
Maybe they are shooting towards the heavens because they blame God for all this mess?
Pretty quiet in these parts. We made our traditional New Year’s Eve dinner of Polenta Pasticciata con Salsa di Funghi with served up with roasted brussels sprouts and a cold green bean salad. Prepared with a French brut and washed down with a Spanish red. Early crash and burn. There were a few booms this way that sounded like fireworks, not gunfire. We didn’t have any fireworks so I fantasized what it would be like to light off a couple of thirty round magazines full of tracer rounds into the sky but given how hard it is to find ammo (not to mention all that goes up must come down and I don’t have any tracer rounds anyway) I left that bad idea to my imagination.
I see from the paper that the State Elefinks have filed yet another nuisance suit against the SoS for failing to deliver truckloads of documents at a moment’s notice. Given I have to assist my employer with huge FOIA requests myself, I know how silly it is to expect that kind of document dump in two weeks during Covid and the Christmas season. Ah, the mischief never ceases.
The Lord takes a dim view of revolutionaries, as you may recall. Lucifer’s uprising ended with him “hurl’d headlong flaming from th’ ethereal sky.”
Ooh. that brings back memories. I struggled with Paradise Lost when I was in my Liberation Theology phase back in my early career at the U of Hawaii. Didn’t hurt that my better half was teaching literature at a nearby college.
Happy new year to the Mad Dog Crue, the Dog himself, and, of course, Herself. We also had salmon for dinner with steamed veggies and salad thanks to curb side pickup at Texas Roadhouse. Our Yahtzee game with the bubble was fun, amplified by a bottle of Malbec, one of Carmenere, and more than a few Guinness stouts. The grand finale was salted caramel gelato topped with Bailey’s Irish Cream. No wonder we went to bed at 2030. Duffy doesn’t like his harmony disturbed, so he slept in this morning.
What did you think of the St. Pauli Girl NA?
PS: We don’t make resolutions anymore.
I resolved not to make resolutions…
I can drink the St. Pauli NA, Paddy me boyo. And the Becks is OK too. But I prefer the Clausthaler. Unfortunately, either a whole lot of other people do too or there’s a kink in the supply line some’eres.
My New Years resolution is to nominate PO’G for a Pulitzer. Surely there is a category for eye-bulging, mouth-frothing, lick-spittle public service announcements. Oh, and to light a candle for Mons.
Prizes — Pulitzers, Emmys, Oscars, Nobels, MacArthur Fellowships, etc. — seem to elude me for some reason. Same way a smart dog steps around the skunk instead of toward it, I imagine.
We got 10 inches of snow this week, and we’re still digging out. Prevented the nothing that wasn’t happening anyway from actually happening. I worked from home and practiced our permanent resolution. Do unto others…
I moved the stuff from our drive, and we regularly do what I can for the neighbors. This time, neighbor Eunice next door mentioned to a friend of hers how we all routinely help each other around here. That friend brought his truck and blade and cleared the plow wash off of our driveways. He reportedly said that good deeds breed more good deeds.
I noticed that Gary and Jamie across the street were away for a few days. I borrowed Eunice’s monster two stage and cleared so they could drive in. Gary and his truck take stuff to the dump for me all the time. The next day, Jamie caught me at the mailbox. I told her that Eunice did the deed, but she wasn’t buying my malarkey. Well, Eunice did donate the gas.
It’s great fun to be fun and make friends. The new couple a few doors down have taken notice and joined in. We’re all just passing it along…
Good neighbors! That’s what we like to see around here. I’ll never forget the day Will, one of the neighbor kids back in Bibleburg, immediately quit kicking his soccer ball around and trotted across the street to help neighbor Judy carry in her shopping, without being prompted by anyone. It was an example to us all.
We’ve got a good bunch here. We used to have monthly “game nights” where we started to get to know each other. They saw me on my bikes, so I naturally invite all. Well, wouldn’t you know the old mountain bikes start to appear. Me, my work stand, and my meager shop skills get ‘em rolling. Fast forward ten years, and five of them still roll, but on skinny tires. They’ve, grown, divorced, grew new sprouts, moved away, but we all still ride together.
Life is good,me boyos, life is good.
When I haul out my lawn mower I’ll also do the neighbour’s verges. Across the road is an elderly Asian couple with limited English, (but way, way, better than my Mandarin), so most of our interactions have been smiles & waves. They run a boarding house for Asian students & on Christmas eve there’s a knock on the door & the house owner presents me with a nice bottle of wine & thanks me for looking after his parents.
The neighbours on either side of me are equally nice & we regularly swap our garden produce by putting bags of it on our walls.
There are good people all over & going forward, I want to appreciate them more & bitch about the arseholes less.
When I read articles like this however, I sincerely hope that when the Dumpster is finally kicked out, there is a traditional crowd waiting for him with pitchforks, flaming torches, tar & feathers & a rail.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/123848974/exceptionally-draining-us-medics-shattered-by-covid-elated-to-be-in-new-zealand
Good on you, Hurben. And I like your idea about devoting more energy toward appreciating the good people.
That couple from Midland? New Zealand must look like heaven on earth to them. I’ve been back to Texas just once since my family lived there during 1962-67, and it was to the oil patch northeast of Midland; Coahoma, specifically, and during a Christmas ice storm. Herself has kinfolks scattered around down to there. Thanks for all the go-juice, folks, but still, damn.
As “glass half full” as I try to be, the fuckwads my fellow Murkans are make me hate with the heat of a hundred suns.
An ICU nurse in South Dakota told about patients positively diagnosed saying it must be pneumonia or lung cancer. Then they died.
Chicken and wet dumplings here on the eve of a new 365. We are hoping and expecting better times ahead. Things are strangely quiet on new year’s day around here. I like that.
Baked a loaf of bread, and the posole is simmering on the stove. We have some salmon left over that would look mighty fine flaked onto a green salad. Life is good.
I might suggest a comma after “better,” and just send the check on over to me. I know how to spend it. Don’t make me come down there.
Dude, sir, no. As to the first, revisit the coordinate adjective. Re: the second, after consulting the money-changers in our temple we regretfully decline your request for funding, as you are doing the Devil’s work up to Crusty County, what with your secular humanism, coaching, trying to encourage young people to experience higher education, etc., et al., and so on and so forth.
Me getting into this discussion would be like getting into a sword fight armed with a stockman pocket knife.
Ain’t nothing worser than a couple of old copy editors debating that vs. which, each other vs. one another, or the Oxford comma. They will argue about arguing if they have to, if only to avoid taking up that school-board piece by the wet-behind-the-ears, snot-nosed, punk-ass kid on the education beat.
I’ll defer to my wife, the retired English professor and technical editor, on all comma questions and will avoid this knife fight. After all, I’m only armed with whatever nuclear weapons I can smuggle out of the factory. Which reminds me….
Newspaper copy-editing is even more twisted and irksome than the more durable sort. Or it was, anyway. Every day you crank out the equivalent of a Russian novel, written by a couple dozen different authors, using The Associated Press Stylebook as your lodestar. It goes without saying that everyone involved is angry, crazy, and drunk.
Some rags have their own stylebooks, or insist on slight variations to AP style. Rarely do these guidelines keep pace with the language as it evolves. Think of a Cat. 4 chasing a pro break.
I was thinking more along the lines of a Cat IV bunch sprint.
Give me “The Elements Of Style” or give me death. It is the technical writers bible in my opinion.
Oops. Writer’s. Shit.
My New Years resolution was to not wait until New Years to try to be a better person. Figured I had a 56 year head start going in the wrong direction, can’t afford to waste any more time if I’m going to ever write that opera, invent cold fusion, and bring peace to the Middle East.
Or, I could settle for making one nice Mutton, Lettuce, and Tomato sandwich. With mutton, you want to go with rye, yeah?