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Toe jamb

August 19, 2022

Habitually hobbled.

Well, I’ve gone and put my foot in it again.

I was in the Reading Room the other day, thumbing through AARP the Magazine, when I stumbled across an article headlined “Good Habits That Might Age You Prematurely.”

One of them, according to author Leslie Goldman and podiatrist Emily Splichal, is wearing supportive soles and insoles. It seems swaddling your dogs in Hush Puppies all the time can take them right out of the hunt.

“Our toes need to push into the ground to maintain balance, and our foot muscles contract to maintain balance and posture,” says Splichal.

Nerves in the feet sensitive to texture, pressure, vibration and other stimuli work with the brain to help you maintain proper posture, stay balanced and avoid falling.

The more you go shod, the less your brain practices those essential skills. The solution: We should all go barefoot at home for at least a half hour daily.

Ho ho ho, I chuckled smugly to myself. I already do this, if only because I am a bog-trotting hillbilly too lazy to bend down and tie my own shoelaces. In fact, I was shoeless while reading the article.

I was not chuckling yesterday afternoon, however. Not after meandering down the hallway sans shoes and spectacles and absentmindedly stuffing my left little piggie into the bedroom doorjamb. The neighbors probably thought they were hearing a Sam Kinison-Bill Hicks doubleheader at maximum volume.

An X-ray tech and a PA agree that nothing’s broken, except my spirit. But my left foot is presently propped up on a pillow with the two portside toes buddy-taped together. So don’t expect me to kick any ass for the next couple days, barefoot or otherwise.

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Posted in Bad news, Injury, Just Fucking Shoot Me, Stupidity | 26 Comments »

Game over

December 8, 2021

“The better news is, it was an electric vehicle that killed you.”

On the way home from the grocery yesterday I managed to avoid three crashes with Burqueños who were either DWI, DUI, or HUA (Head Up Ass).

Stopping for a red light at Comanche and Tramway, a popular spot for the high-speed not stopping for red lights, I took note of the detritus from a recent collision scattered across the intersection.

And later, at home, hearing the wail of sirens and the whock-whock-whock of helicopters, I wondered idly who else had just made an unscheduled stop for a shit sammich.

Turns out a two-car crash at the next intersection up Tramway — the worst one, for my money — sent six people to the hospital, where four were listed in critical condition.

So color me unamused that Tesla is giving drivers the chance to play video games in their cars. While moving.

The New York Times notes that Elon Musk and his elves at Tesla “did not respond to several emails asking about the new video games and whether they could jeopardize safety.”

Imagine my surprise. No wonder Elon is in such a rush to get to Mars. He thinks it ain’t safe here on Earth, and he’s right.

We should pry Captain Video out of his Starship and drop him into a 1971 Ford Pinto, make him cruise around Albuquerque until he learns how to answer his emails. At a dead stop, of course.

• In other news, from our You’ve Got to be Fucking Shitting Me Department, we have the “Smart-Cockpit,” a bicycle handlebar with a touchscreen featuring Apple’s CarPlay and Android Auto. Is it April 1? Did I sleep through winter?

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Posted in Albuquerque, Assholes, Automobiles, Capitalist swine, Gadget lust, Just Fucking Shoot Me, Technology, Things that suck | 28 Comments »

Oh, eat me

April 20, 2021

“No one wants to work anymore.” And yet somebody posted this sign at a place of business. ’Ees a puzzlement, to be sure.

Here’s an interesting story. Not “interesting” in the sense that it was solidly reported, written, and edited, which it was not. Interesting in that it calls into question the business model of the fast-food industry.

The story — headlined “We’re competing with unemployment” — focuses on the hiring problems that outfits like Fresquez Companies, Twisters, and Sonic-Inspire Brands are having locally in Year Two of The Plague®.

Back in the day, when newspapers still had copy desks, a cynical old rim rat might have wondered at some volume whether the corporate types quoted in the piece had coordinated their tales of woe.

Says one: “Why would anybody want to, I guess, start at a minimum-wage job when they can be earning more money … on unemployment?”

Adds another: “People are making a lot more money being unemployed than employed, and the world is coming back to dine-in and eat-in a little bit at a time, so the stimulus really paused people applying to jobs.”

And a third: “I think it’s pretty easy to connect … unemployment benefits to it. I think a lot of us feel like a lot of people have chosen not to go back to work yet, because they’re still receiving the benefits.”

Well, shucks. It makes a man’s eyes damp, for sure.

My first question was, “How many of these struggling companies have received SBA Paycheck Protection Program funds or some other form of governmental assistance to make ends meet in these troubled times?” The story doesn’t say.

Nor does the reporter speak with any current, former, or potential employees. The one nod to working people came in a quote from OLÉ Education Fund executive director Matthew Henderson, who said: “Essential workers have risked their lives to keep New Mexico running during the pandemic. Some have decided, however, that the risk to their family’s health is not worth the poverty wages and lack of benefits that many employers offer. Don’t fault workers for refusing to be exploited.”

When I was young and even dumber than I am now, I briefly dated a single mom who availed herself of the various forms of governmental assistance to be had at the time. She was always strapped for cash, and since I was young and dumb, I asked her why she didn’t just get a job.

She explained patiently that the kind of job she would be able to get wouldn’t begin to pay the bills, much less the cost of child care while she worked. So she chose to keep jumping through the hoops of public assistance and raising her child. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

How many potential recruits for the Paper Hat Platoon have decided to stay home, collect assistance, and help their kids navigate remote learning with the goal of giving them a future that doesn’t involve pitching greaseburgers through windows at the Duke City’s drive-thrus? I mean, you don’t need a Ph.D in Google Search to find horror stories about the life and times of the fast-food worker.

I suspect this story may have had its roots in the photo above, posted on Twitter by a local TV reporter. Snapped at a local Sonic, it shows a sign reading: “We are short staffed. Please be patient with the staff that did show up. No one wants to work anymore.”

Wrong, pendejo. They just don’t want to work for you.

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Posted in Agitprop, Assholes, Capitalist swine, Deep political thought, Dollars and nonsense, Feckin' eejits, Incisive financial analysis, Just Fucking Shoot Me, Plague, Small hat sizes, Things that suck, What the Actual Fuck? | 16 Comments »

Dire portents of the End Times

April 13, 2021

I had a ton of Hawaiian-style shirts once, before I checked my privilege as a second-rate copy editor at a third-string newspaper.

Gosh. Another fashion option out the window.

I guess I’ll have to go back to my top hat and tails. Mahalo, pendejos.

Aren’t some of us just kind of stretching a bit to find things that piss us off? I mean, I was a Maoist, f’fucksake, and even we were less easily enraged.

We were also less nattily attired. But god damn it, nobody ever accused us of being “fashionable embodiments of the history of American colonization, imperialism and racism.” ¡Venceremos!

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Posted in Fashion, Just Fucking Shoot Me, What the Actual Fuck? | 26 Comments »

Playing with blocks

March 31, 2021

I came back from a 7-mile hike to find a buggered WordPress interface.

Here’s something I don’t like: Unasked-for, unannounced and unwanted changes to a product I use daily.

WordPress pulled one of these switcheroos on me yesterday, reconfiguring its “navigation experience” to make managing its sites “more intuitive.”

“For many of you, there will be little to no change in how you use WordPress.com,” wrote Austin Lao on the WordPress blog yesterday. The many did not include the one, which is to say this one. Me.

Engineers gotta engineer, I guess. But still, damn.

Tucked into the “enhancements” to the “navigation experience” appears to be a forced shift from the old “Classic” CMS to the Gutenberg block editor, which I have been resisting because I don’t like anything about it.Â

For starters, “intuitive?” Me bollocks. The old “New Post” tool was intuitive. The new one is riddled with perplexing popups and hidden widgets. I’ll find them eventually, I imagine. But it’s gonna be like digging in the back yard for buried treasure. Might be there; might not be.

It’s a small thing to complain about. I mean, out in the real world people are still catching The Bug®, drinking poison water, or getting boned by Matt Gaetz (eeeeeeeyeeewwwwwww).

But still, damn.

I’ve posed the traditional “WTF?” to WordPress. While I await a reply, I’m back in kindergarten, playing with blocks.

Update: One of WP’s “happiness engineers” showed me how to unplug The Great and Powerful Oz. Fuck that guy. Not the happiness engineer, the Wizard. Anyway, with any luck atall atall we’re back on track here.

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Posted in Assholes, Bloggus interruptus, Just Fucking Shoot Me, Pissing and moaning, Techno-travails | 24 Comments »

Point of ordure

February 13, 2021

Senators at work. For a change.

One thing you do not want to do on a brisk February morning is consider the rampant jackoffery taking place in the U.S. Senate while your spouse tells you how Uncle Sammy plans to hoist you by your ankles for a vigorous shakedown come April 15.

Jesus H., etc. Every one of these posturing poltroons who came into this process focused on rubbing one out while waiting to acquit Impeachy the Clown has betrayed his or her oath to the Constitution and should be run out of town via rail (not the Amtrak variety, but rather the splintery numbers without sleepers or a dining car).

Once delivered to Flyover Country the chickenshits should be issued orange jumpsuits, either too large or too small, equipped with masks crafted from the unlaundered undergarments of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Tucker Carlson, and compelled to pick up roadside refuse, distribute vaccine, and build houses for the homeless.

You got time to doodle, read the paper, and put your feet up while doing the people’s business, you got time to pick up discarded diapers, broken bottles, and used rubbers.

How’s that for justice? The trash picking up the garbage.

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Posted in Agitprop, Assholes, Deep political thought, Feckin' eejits, Just Fucking Shoot Me, Ranting and raving, Things that suck | 18 Comments »

More, late*

December 21, 2020

A little light and a lot more tunnel.

“Pandemic Deal by Congress Provides Economic Relief, for Now,” reports The New York Times.

But it’s too little, too late, and perhaps the last of Uncle Sammy’s pennies in the ol’ tin cup for a while, adds The Old Grey Hoor, in an analysis by Ben Casselman and Jim Tankersley.

The injection of money comes months too late for tens of thousands of failed businesses, however, and it may not be enough to sustain unemployed workers until the labor market rebounds. Moreover, it could be the last help from Washington the economy gets anytime soon.

Call me cynical, but I think we need some brighter bulbs on this job.

*Apologies to Chris in the Morning.

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Posted in Assholes, Chickenshittery, Deep political thought, Derision, Dollars and nonsense, Feckin' eejits, Feddle gummint, Incisive financial analysis, Just Fucking Shoot Me, Plague, Poverty, Ranting and raving, Shocked disbelief, Small hat sizes, The shit monsoon, Things that suck | 25 Comments »

Let them eat shit

December 10, 2020

“Be Best?” How about, “Begone?”

So I’m standing in the kitchen after a morning of bad dreams, idly thumbing through the news on my phone as the toaster mutters to itself, when I stumble across these two items back to back on The Washington Post app:

• Stealing to survive: More Americans are shoplifting food as aid runs out during the pandemic. One manager interviewed said he usually doesn’t call the John Laws, but instead tells the offenders not to come back.

“It’s become much harder during the pandemic,” he said. “People will say, ‘I was just hungry.’ And then what do you do?”

• Dismissing health concerns, State Department treats 200 guests to holiday drinks, tours and leftover “Be Best” swag. The hoopla included a tour of the White House holiday decorations, beverages at Blair House, and “Be Best” merch’ from the phenomenally unremarkable anti-bullying initiative by the First Plagiarist, Countess Malaria Dracula.

“It’s time to get rid of the leftovers,” said one official.

Indeed it is. There’s never a guillotine around when you need one. Jan. 20 can’t come soon enough.

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Posted in Agitprop, Assholes, Deep political thought, Feddle gummint, Just Fucking Shoot Me, Plague, Poverty | 5 Comments »

Nuts?

October 22, 2020

Thanks, but I prefer mine dry roasted and salted.
And in a sealed plastic bag, from the grocery.

What we have here is a metaphor for the last presidential election, right down to the health-care plan.

“I can’t say it’s cult activity,” the sheriff told reporters. “It is something that we have never in my career run across in this part of the country. It is borderline some type of activity. … We know there’s a lot of rumors out there but at this time there’s no danger to the public.”

Uh huh. Just a couple good ol’ boys who took teabagging to a whole new level.

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Posted in Health care, Just Fucking Shoot Me, What the Actual Fuck? | 12 Comments »

‘Bigger even than I had feared’

September 30, 2020

Flush twice, it’s a long way to the Commission on Presidential Debates.

The headline is taken from the 1978 Thomas McGuane novel “Panama.”

Chet Pomeroy, a performer on the skids whose act has included, among lesser spectacles, crawling out of the ass of a frozen elephant in his underwear to fight a duel with a baseball batting-practice machine, is stalking his ex-girlfriend Catherine Clay through the aisles of a Key West grocery.

She clocks him, he asks to use the bathroom, and … well, just read the book. It’s a lot more entertaining and informative, and at its most outrageous less grotesque, than last night’s “debate.”

Not even McGuane the essayist could’ve covered that raree-show, assuming he could resurrect his long-dead alter ego of Captain Berserko. Hunter S. Thompson might have managed, even participated, but sadly he is no longer with us.

It may have been the single worst thing I have ever invited into my home, and that is a fierce competition indeed. Miss Mia Sopaipilla blew a hairball. I dreamed of Nazis. Herself told me first thing this morning that CNN’s Dana Bash had called it “a shitshow,” which I thought generous and profoundly understated.

Still, I’m glad to see the mainstream media has finally copped on, albeit a trifle late. McGuane had it figured out back in 1971, when Bash was born, seven years before he would publish “Panama.”

Queried about his politics by comrade Jim Harrison, as part of a faux interview for the literary magazine Sumac, McGuane replied thusly:

“I suppose I am a bit left of Left. America has become a dildo that has turned berserkly on its owner.”

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Posted in Agitprop, Assholes, Deep political thought, Just Fucking Shoot Me, Spectacles | 16 Comments »

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