“You know what President Truman said,” Remi [Boncœur] would say. “We must cut down on the cost of living.”
And also, “Tortilla Flat,” by John Steinbeck:
Beans are a roof over your stomach. Beans are a warm cloak against economic cold.
Thus, yesterday I labored mightily and brought forth the plato combinado. Green chile chicken enchiladas, frijoles, and rice. Not pictured: The appetizer created by Herself; sliced avocado with halved cherry tomatoes, olive oil, salt, and pepper. We will be gnawing on this carcass for days.
The mantra around here when money gets tight is “Beans and rice, rice and beans, beans and rice.” So there you have it. Go forth and do likewise.
• Editor’s note: I first saw this Peloton story at NPR, and then went straight to AP to see if the original was this fucked up (it was). Buried the lede. (Who gives a shit about a hapless CEO lateraled over to a cushy gig elsewhere?) Confused “there” for “their” and “its” for “it’s.” It took two people to write this dreck and at least two more to put it online. When the nuts and bolts are this bad, one fears for the solidity of the “content.”
I should pitch a movie, “The Last Copy Editor,” about a tireless comma-chaser, usage Nazi, and AP-style maven who fights tooth and nail against the corporate vultures turning journalism into bung fodder.
I see either Jason Statham or Bruce Willis playing me in the title role, maybe John Goodman as the evil hatchet man from Corporate.
Issa Rae as the sharp young reporter who joins me in my quest for editorial excellence. Bill Burr as the comically inept city editor always hitting on her. Edward James Olmos as the burned-out slot man whose copy of “The Elements of Style” is actually an ingeniously contrived flask of bottom-shelf vodka.
Bill Hader as the online editor, a jagoff whose first language is jargon. Stephen Root as the clueless hack who frequently misspells his own byline and always waits until 30 seconds before deadline to file. Natasha Lyonne as the wisecracking dyslexic photographer who says writing captions is not part of her job description.
Grab the magnifying glass, then sprinkle some pepper down there and wait for it to sneeze.
The Algorithm is having fun with me today.
When I checked Weather Underground for today’s forecast I was served in quick succession ads for wiener medicine and the Jeep Grand Cherokee. I’m not quite certain what the connection might be there, and I’m pretty sure I don’t care to find out.
Later, on the way back from the grocery, I saw a cyclist wobbling along in the Comanche bike lane … in shorts and short sleeves. Checked the Subie’s thermometer: 33°.
Now there’s a dude might could use a Jeep Grand Cherokee. For sure he’s gonna need some wiener meds.
Call me crazy, but I’m thinking the wildfire risk is a little lower than usual today.
After our little snow event the other day I put fenders on the Soma Double Cross just in case the running got boring, which it did. This meant the 42mm Soma Cazadero tires had to come off, and I spazzed around a bit trying to come up with something in a 38mm.
The DC with fenders makes an excellent snow repellent.
Kenda Kwicker? Nope, 32mm. Michelin Transworld Sprint? 35mm and I never liked ’em anyway.
Finally I grabbed an old set of 37mm WTB All Terrain wire-beads and slapped those on, in the process being reminded why they were in a corner of the garage instead of on rims. Mother dog, were them sumbitches ever a bear to mount.
But it was worth it to get fenders on the DC. Whenever it snows The Duck! City scatters this reddish sand all over every horizontal surface. Could be pulverized granite; could be chile powder. I have no idea. But it gets onto and into everything, and if you get any on your kit, it will be there for the better part of quite some time.
So, yeah, fenders. Worked like a charm. So much so that the forecast for the next week is sunny, with temps in the 40s and 50s.
Progress marches on, towing me along behind it like a water skier who refuses to leave shore. You can practically hear the skis dragging across the lakeside gravel.
I’ve been noticing various hitches in the gitalong of my 15-inch 2014 MacBook Pro, which is the workhorse here at El Rancho Pendejo (“Your Gateway to Giggle City!”).
And as usual, the problem lies not with me, but with everybody else.
WordPress, The Washington Post, Esquire, and other stops along my daily dawdle all have been pissing on me from their considerable technological height, proclaiming that the MacBook’s 5-year-old OS (High Sierra, 10.13.6) and equally antiquated browser (Safari 13.1.2) are so 15 minutes ago, which as sayings go is likewise about as au courant as “Twenty-three skiddoo!”
It finally became so irksome that I felt compelled to take hold. WaPo and Chazbo Pierce’s site had both gotten as creaky as a geezer’s knees in February. And WordPress wouldn’t even let me swap headers on the blog, which is pretty basic stuff.
In a support chat I could sense the Happiness Engineer’s forehead bouncing rhythmically off the keyboard.
“Safari 13 is several versions behind the latest versions so I suspect that may be what is causing the issue,” s/he typed. “I would recommend that you try to access the site through a different browser such as Chrome if you’re not ready or able to update the Macs yet for whatever reason.”
Well, sheeyit. High Sierra is as good as it gets around here, Scooter. It’s on everything newer than mid-2012. And Google is evil no matter what they claim to be.
Still, it is winter, and I am retired, and also slightly bored. So I decided to do a little tinkering.
Not on the Main Machine, mind you. My testing bench would be the 13-inch 2014 MacBook Pro, the ’Book I use for road trips if I’m sleeping indoors. The 11-inch 2012 MacBook Air gets the callup if I’m tenting it.
First I paid a visit to my old buddy Mozilla, and hey presto, Firefox 96.0.3 works like a charm. But Firefox is awful needy — “Can I be your default browser? Please? Pleasepleaseplease?” — so I thought what the hell, let’s just bump the OS up a notch, see what happens. Can’t sing, can’t dance, too fat to fly.
I’ve been hinky about this shit ever since a long jump from Snow Leopard to Mavericks gave my 2009 iMac a brain bleed. But High Sierra to Mojave is only one little hop, just a year between releases. So I gave the boot drive a once-over with Disk Utility, downloaded a fresh copy of Mojave, and let ’er buck.
And so far, so good (knocking on wood). The 13-incher is my kitchen Mac when I’m not on the road, because I don’t like sitting down first thing, and anyway I have coffee to brew, breakfast to make. And as you see, all is smooth like Irish butter on homemade bread.
Mad Blog Media 