Fuelishness 2: $3.89 for all my friends!

March 14, 2026March 14, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments

Everyone’s on the same page along Tramway Boulevard.

Way back in the Glory Days of Monday — remember that fabulous Monday? — a happy Duck! City motorist could gas up for $3.39 or $3.59 per gallon, depending on his/her choice of station.

On Saturday … not so much.

The going rate for a gallon of go-juice on Tramway today is $3.89, from Lomas to San Bernardino. Affordability is on the march, and soon the American public will be legging it around and about, too.

Just wait until Addled Hitler sinks Kharg Island, a small coral island off Iran’s coast that according to The Associated Press is “the primary terminal through which nearly all of Iran’s oil exports pass.” The Guardian has a nifty explainer, too.

Petras Katinas, an energy researcher at the Royal United Services Institute who calls Kharg “the main node” of the Iranian economy, said that if Iran were to lose control of the island, it would be difficult for the country to function, even though the island isn’t a military or nuclear target.

“It doesn’t matter which regime is in power — new or old,” Katinas said.

Oh, good. This is like blowing up a 7-Eleven and replacing it with a Circle K, only the Circle K has empty shelves, fuel pumps that don’t work, no employees, and an angry mob forming in the cratered parking lot with weapons in various calibers and configurations, craving a word with management.

Send Whiskey Pete Kegsbreath out to restore order. He can show them his tats. They can show him their rat-a-tat-tats.

From rods of death to staff of life

January 26, 2026 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments

OK, it can’t be all fascism and firearms all the time around here, goddamn it all anyways.

The last of the cornbread went down the rathole with coffee this morning. I miss it already.

Happily, we have a “new” Panasonic SD-YD250 “Bread Bakery” to play with. I put “new” in quotes because the thing could share a birthday with my Subaru, having first been released in 2005.

A new model is available for $374.99. We didn’t pay that much. Herself acquired ours at an estate sale, for chump change, and I vigorously ignored it for the better part of quite some time until she finally badgered me into taking it for a quick spin around the kitchen by dragging it from its cubby and starting to fiddle with it. Gimme that!

The first couple loaves came out looking like a Klingon’s head after Captain Kirk backed over it with the USS Enterprise. But the third looked like a loaf of bread, and tasted like one, too. A little less flour, a skosh more water and yeast, and Bob’s your uncle.

Little puzzles like this are good for staving off the dementia, but not so much for the upkeep of social skills. So I intend to keep visiting the neighborhood bakery from time to time.

It takes five hours to bake a loaf but about 15 minutes to buy one, counting driving time. And they sell delicious scones, brownies, and cookies, too.

Going off half-cocked

September 11, 2025September 11, 2025 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments

The pen might not be mightier than the pistol, but its output is easier to edit.

I had heard of Charlie Kirk.

That’s about it.

Now I hear of nothing else.

So, thanks for that, to the asshole that killed him, elevating the bloody corpse of a right-wing provocateur light-years beyond any merit he accrued while still walking the earth.

I am opposed on general principle to shooting mouthy nuisances, in part because I have been one myself and may be one again. I may be one right now, depending upon your point of view.

So, please: Don’t shoot. If only because should you miss I may very well shoot back. And then where will we be? I may be a mouthy nuisance, but so many of us are, and ammo and lawyers and bail bondsmen and prisons and funerals are time-consuming and expensive.

Plus every good cult (and the bad ones, too) loves a martyr. The right stiff puts the pinheads in the pews and their pennies in the plate. These Elmer Gantrys don’t need a new angle — they’re doing just fine hawking Genuine Pieces of the One True (Double) Cross to the rubes.

So, instead of potting someone from a rooftop, why not turn up to debate with them? Append a nasty comment to the video! Make a plausible fart noise with one palm tucked in an armpit! Whatever blows your skirt up. Or your kilt. Crotchless panties, tactical boxers, fuck, I dunno, Christ, everybody’s so fucking sensitive these days,

Whatever you wear, or don’t — musn’t forget the nudists! Naturists! Jesus! — keep the Colt in its holster. Or better yet, at home, in the gun safe. Arm yourself with words.

Battle lines being drawn

June 14, 2025June 14, 2025 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 28 Comments

It was a hot time in the old town at the No Kings rally.

We had just found a small patch of shade at the No Kings rally when Herself showed me the first reports of the assassinations in Minnesota.

Another psycho with a gun.

The first one I can remember was John F. Kennedy. I was nine. Next was Malcolm X. Then Martin Luther King. Bobby Kennedy. Fred Hampton. Harvey Milk. John Lennon. The list goes on.

Tell you what. This sort of thing does not make you feel good about being in a strange place surrounded by people you don’t know, with a DJ working one side of the park and some sort of drum circle going in the other.

Herself caught me looking around and wondered why.

“I’m trying to make sure I know how we can get the hell out of here,” I said.

She thought I meant at the end of the festivities. I was thinking about the beginning of someone’s fantasies.

A young woman came up with a tray of sliced bananas and oranges and asked if I’d like something.

“No, I’m good,” I replied. “But thanks just the same.” Head still on a swivel.

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
Step out of line, the men come and take you away

I tried to cling to the spirit of the moment — small-d democrats old and young and in between, with imaginative signs and fashion choices, dancing, music — Sly and the Family Stone’s “Stand,” because of course “Stand” — but it slipped away from me. It was a large park, but a cramped space, with a lot of noise and people milling around and a sound system that was not up to the task.

We about half heard Rep. Melanie Stansbury from the drum circle, then changed locations to see if we could find a better listening post. Nope.

I tapped Herself on the shoulder and gave her the old thumb over the shoulder.

“Ready to beat it? ” I asked. She was. We did.

I’m glad we went. I’d do it again tomorrow. I’ll do it as long as I can still take some hope from it.

Because it beats the mortal shit out of killing people.

Air conditioning (and one ventilation)

May 31, 2025 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments

One of those hazy, lazy days of not-quite summer.

Lots of schmutz in the air today. Our air purifier started sounding like a 747 trying (and failing) to take off from Newark, so I figured Elon was back to blowing up Starships in Texas between Special K binges and using his face as a catcher’s mitt for some pitcher’s high hard one.

But nope. Just windblown wildfire smoke and dust from Mexico, according to the local press. A health alert* has been issued. And warmish, too, so much so with the doors and windows closed that I finally caved and turned on the air conditioning. We must think of Miss Mia Sopaipilla, after all.

* Health alert not provided concerning side effects of the Second Amendment.