Category: Cold

Shoveling

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments
Behold the Driveway of Doom.
Behold the Driveway of Doom.

Jaysis. Some days, the writing, it goes smooth like butta.

And some days, it goes more like shitting broken bottles into a flaming toilet. Something of a pain in the keister, is what.

This is the grotesquely scenic route toward explaining the recent dearth of bloggery in these environs. With mots of the bon variety proving elusive I felt compelled to corral the few I was able to catch, hoping eventually to assemble them into a remuda of paying copy.

Nix.

Notions kept arising with malicious intent, like Martin Sheen surfacing in the lagoon en route to snuffing Marlon Brando in “Apocalpyse Now.” False paths with bad endings. Curiously shaped bricks that, while fascinating in their own right, didn’t quite fit in the wall.

Gah.

Also, it snowed. One of those obnoxious, featherweight snows that, coupled with a stiff north wind, basically glazes a steep, north-facing driveway like a cop’s donut if the homeowner is distracted by journalism and forgets to clear it first thing.

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeyit.

While all this was going on I was striving mightily to avoid the actual news, which, wow, talk about your false paths and bad endings. The road goes ever on and on. Here be dragons. This way to the Dark Side. Thus I shunned The New York Times and NPR in order to remain blissfully ignorant and focused on the task at hand, viz., to wit, earning the meager handful of coppers I require to purchase my common groats and lentils.

And now I believe I need a break from all that. It’s the weekend, f’chrissakes. The toilet will still be on fire come Monday morning.

 

Snow cat

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 24 Comments
I don't think I need to break out the shovel for this one.
I don’t think I need to break out the shovel for this one.

It probably doesn’t qualify as the first snow of the year, but we finally got a dusting at El Rancho Pendejo.

The temp remains below freezing as of 9 a.m., and I’m having a very hard time getting excited about going grocery shopping. But we’re inching our way downward through the pantry toward the basics — beans, rice, chile, etc. — and something, as they say, must be done.

I could slap together a pretty interesting vegetarian combo platter with what I have on hand — bean burritos smothered in green and sprinkled with cheddar, sides of Mexican rice and posole — but that would just kick the ol’ can down the road.

Speaking of roads and cans that need kicking along same, some of us have been having an invigorating discussion in comments about the big bad feddle gummint and what to do about it. I don’t want the blog to devolve entirely into a civics course, but just for shits and giggles, let’s take it on faith that the government is too big and intrusive and our tax burden too onerous.

So how do we shrink the federal government to a manageable size? What would you cut? Whose ox gets gored?

And keep in mind that we are not just cutting functions here. We’re shitcanning people. Our fellow Americans. They enjoy their combo platters, too, as do the folks that sell and serve them, so spare them a thought in your calculations.

As of 2014 the U.S. government employed some 2.7 million people. Walmart only has 1.5 million or so on payroll in the United States; Amazon’s headcount is about 240,000 folks, or about twice as many as Apple.

So I don’t see all these sidelined federales landing cushy gigs moving boxes around an Amazon warehouse, greeting the penny-pinchers at Sam’s Club, or failing to fix my 2009 iMac at the Albuquerque Apple Store.

 

Cybrrrrrrrrrr Monday

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments
Baby, it's cold outside.
Baby, it’s cold outside.

Still no snow here in the Duke City as the Thanksgiving weekend lurches to an overstuffed close. But it’s cold out there — 29 degrees as of java time — and there’s white stuff in the forecast, if not yet on the ground.

Elsewhere, things are heating up a tad. Having sold the rubes a bill of goods, the national media are now gleefully pointing out the dings, dents, leaks and creaks in the gold-plated machinery that is the Pestilence-Elect.

Seems he’s a liar, and a walking, tweeting conflict of interest with his short-fingered paws in some very questionable pockets. His chief adviser is a white-nationalist propagandist and political opportunist. And he’s larding up his administration with the sort of rich, connected honkies you’d expect from pretty much any ol’ rich, connected honky the GOP managed to shoehorn into the White House.

Huh. Who knew? Only anyone who’d been paying attention, is all.

Turns out that if you want to drain a swamp, it’s probably a bad idea to hire the guy who likes the swamp, knows everyone who lives there, and owns a fair chunk of it.

As another famous swamp-dweller once noted, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Fat Tuesday

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments
As you can see, Il Fattini is already contemplating his holiday shopping.
As you can see, Il Fattini is already contemplating his holiday shopping.

Hm, seems to have gotten a bit Novemberish out there all of a sudden. Forty. Seventy percent humidity. Gasp, etc.

So much for the bad news. The good news is that you can finally order your Old Guy Who Gets Fat In Winter kit in a long-sleeved version.

Think of it as that extra layer for a fella who doesn’t really need one.

And the better news is that Voler is doing a 20 percent off sale this week and the discount is extended to the gravity-impaired members of the Old Guys community. Customers using the promo code SAVEGUYS will receive 20 percent off all Voler Store items, including the OGWGFIW collection.

Finally, and perhaps best of all — for those of you living outside the newly declared People’s Republic of Kakistostan, Voler has begun shipping to Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Iceland, Irish Republic, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

So, remember, buy early, buy often. We’d like to have the bunker finished by Inauguration Day and all the contractors want cash up front for any Trump-related construction projects.

February made me shiver

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments
It was a dark and stormy ... morning?
It was a dark and stormy … morning?

I was burrowed deep under the covers and Herself was in the bathroom, getting ready for work and making noises about breakfast.

When I mumbled that she had not yet sung the “Please Get Up and Make Me An English Muffin” song, she replied with something about a beating, and so up I got. She’s small but fierce and a dick-punch before coffee always gets the day off to a rough start.

After being properly muffined, Herself bustled off to the Death Star. Me, I got the trash and recycle bins to the curb and was back inside before the snow started blowing around and about, announcing February’s triumphant debut in the Duke City.

Doesn’t look like we’ll get much in the way of snow, but it’s going to be chilly for a few days, and the knee warmers I was wearing on yesterday’s ride will go right back into the drawer. Uniform of the day will be tights, long-sleeved tops (two), tuque, gloves, wool socks and running shoes. Hep, hoop, hreep, horp. …

Evil weather is forecast in Iowa, too, where The Des Moines Register is covering the mortal shit out of the caucuses. So, too, is Charles P. Pierce.

Maybe Larry can enlighten us as to why Iowa enjoys this outsize influence on our political process every four years. I spent a lot of summers in Sioux City, and one in Iowa Falls, and I consider the state to be about as representative of America as a whole as a nursing home in the Pecker Woods of North Dakota.

Still, it should be amusing. If Iowa sends a few rats over the side of the GOP’s listing cruise ship, I’ll consider it a net positive.

Editor’s note: Oh, yeah, and some asshole brought a motorized bike to cyclo-cross worlds. Naturally, it is Someone Else’s Fault®, as per usual. Jesus wept. I am so over bicycle racing.