Lie to Impress

 Today... let there be sunshine!  And it was so... at least for the time being.  We might end up with overcast skies later in the day, but right now the sun is shining.  Temps are suppose to climb into the upper 60s (F), which is nice.  No rain is in the forecast, that's nice.  We've had so much lately.  To think, one of my retail associates told me that "we need rain."  I suspect she must get her weather information from Fox.

Quite a bit was accomplished yesterday in the kitchen renovation.  Shelves were taking down, the shelf / pot hanger was installed at the window.  And the dishwasher was delivered.  Originally, I had hoped that my contractor's boyfriend was going to install it, but his life is complicated and she told me he might need to bring his young son with to do the job.  So, I've started watching YouTube videos on installing dishwashers.  To my surprise, it's not that complicated at all.  

In 45 minutes, the electrician is supposed to arrive.  Once he's completed his work, the only left to do will be the cabinet / dishwasher install, the flooring, and painting.  Yes, that's right there is a lot of painting: the new wall, the cabinets (ice sculpture white), and the new baseboard.  I'm certain there will also be touch-ups on the previously painted walls.

And wasn't yesterday filled with delightfully bad Trump news?  The fraud case!  For over a decade he's been lying about his wealth because he's always wanted to be far more richer than he actually was.  For those of you have nurtured any doubts, his motto, his creed, his philosophy has always been this:  Lie to Impress.  I found it fascinating to see the ridiculously mundane excuses his legal team was using to try and delay his trial.  Thanks that yesterday, all that remains is sentencing, and hopefully Donnie and his spawn will get raked through the coils.  While his base is going to shriek and moan, this may speed up the exit of non-Republican supporters.

I found this amusing too:  over in the UK, social conservatives are upset with the government because Boris lied to them about Brexit.  The benefits he promised are not flowing in their direction.  Their middle-class lives have not changed for the better.  Keep in mind, Boris stacked his deck with one of Trump's favorite playing cards, the joker.  Boris, too, believed he could lie to impress.

Cracker Jack Crazy

 Crap, I got home yesterday prepared for a ride... and the bluetooth wasn't cooperating.  Since I tend to lack patience on certain things, I find issues like this time consuming.  In the end, it turned out to be a fixable problem with the radio transmitters of my Ant +, the dongle that connects to my Tacx.  

It's Italian food day at work today.  Chicken Parmigiana, or Vegetarian Lasagna... and one other entre are on the menu.  I hope they have cannolis.  Tomorrow it's supposed to be Ice Cream day...  and I don't believe we're talking about simple cones or sandwiches here.  Can't wait to find out.

I realized this morning I'd forgotten to respond to your comments yesterday... the bike thing took almost an hour to resolve.  Damn!  And by then I had to move down to the kitchen to cook.  Using the rest of the taco beef and rice, I made stuffed peppers.

Two are in the freezer, one will be Monday's lunch.

And I see where the Idiot Jerk is going to nominate a Cracker Jack Crazy Christian to the Supreme Court. He's going to give his ultra-conservative base everything their dirty, little hearts crave.  I believe most of us knew this was going to happen.  This is part of his deal with the devil.  Power needs to be taken away from this minority group, other wise they will destroy the country, preferring some dystopian horror to democracy.  I think Joe Scarborough has a pretty good idea what's going to happen.  Every one of their evils will be undone.  For some of them, reality is going to be cruel.  They deserve it.  They are selfish, uncaring, and unsympathetic.  We are seeing the culmination of the Reagan lie, that the country is overwhelming conservative.  The time has come to end it and send their despot fleeing to Russia.  We need to teach them a terrible lesson.  Good.

This is amusing:  Lindsey Graham appeared on Fox pleading for Cash.  His campaign is in trouble.  Woe is me, Lindsey Belle.  This loser doesn't understand he's going to be sent packing back to Hell with his boss by the voters of South Carolina.  It's time to put the champagne on ice.

Finally, I saw where the Idiot Jerk's #2 spawn, Eric has said his father would accept a peaceful transition if the voters "blow him out of the water."  Eric... start packing now.

Shut... Up

So, I see that Jeffy (the Keebler Elf) has finally sold his soul to the Idiot Jerk in the White House, not that his blackened stain of a hear was worth much.  And the Idiot Jerk wants to sue Stormy Daniels for $20 million - but then this also is what that shit stain of a human being has always done.  There's a difference this time, however, the McMaster firing and the Daniels lawsuit are all going very, very public.  And it's not sitting well with a number of people.  But then, this is Republican stupidity at its height.  The time has come to vote them into oblivion.
Hackers are at the gates of power girds, and utilities and, of course, the Idiot Jerk doesn't care.  I suspect the only thing that will really bother him will be when he's pilloried on the White House lawn so people can pelt him with rotten eggs.  This will happen.  The sooner, the better.  How do I know?  Even Trey Gowdy is breaking with the GOP.  Stating that the Russians were directly involved in trying to get the Idiot Jerk into the White House, they indirectly imply that there was collusion.  Of course, I've said before, I suspect this to be the main reason he's not running for re-election.  He knows the hammer is going to come down hard on the GOP as Americans vote them into oblivion.
The time has come to take back our country from the Crazies on the Right.
Shut them up and shut them down.
We do this by taking back the House and the Senate.  The easiest way for this to happen is to regionalize the party and then isolate the regions.  No more purple states.  Blue forever.
For years Social Conservatives have been saying there's a war against Christianity.  The time has come to start calling that lie out.  Tell them to shut up.  The only war is the one they, themselves have started.  When some one fool says "It's against my religion," just tell them to shut up. 
In fact, that's a very good first step in shutting them up and shutting them down.  Just say "shut... up," and make sure you include that little pause between those 2 words.  No profanity.  Just 2 words.  "Shut... up."  Do that a couple of times and you'll get to see a Republican brain explode.

Some are blessed... some ain't

So I see that the Idiot Jerk in the White House's breeder spawn (I vant it) Ivanka is as colossally stupid as her old man.  I wonder if the NRA promised her a copyright if she echoed their belief that teachers should be armed... of if perhaps they just offered to loan the Kushner family some greenbacks.  The only people in this country who don't want any form of gun control are those Crazy Conservatives and their Republican representatives.  These representatives, when it comes to a choice between your child's life and being funded by the NRA in order to get re-elected, are always going to take the money.  For them, staying in power is much more important then living children.  Even more amazing is that many of these Crazy Conservatives claim to be Social Conservatives, supposedly Christians through and through.  These fools don't understand that they've made the NRA's phony 2nd amendment claim much more important than the sanctity of human life.  There's going to be hot time in hell when they die.
And Congress goes back in session today... don't look for any noticeable change in the Republican gun control tactics.  Once your soul is sold... there's no getting back.
Speaking of souls, now I know many, many Social Conservatives have already signed that pact between themselves and the Idiot Jerk in the White House.  They love him.  They praise him.  Does anybody know if they actually bow their heads when he walks into the room?
My cycling shorts arrived yesterday.  Olive green.  They look like regular shorts.

The spandex lining (with the padding) is separate.  Now, I have to tell you, I'm not a spandex kind of guy... not in the least.  Back when I was in college, not only did I direct a couple of shows, I also did set design and chorus work.  One year they did "Once Upon a Mattress," a show I'm not too fond of, and, unfortunately ended up being cast in a bit part:  Sir Studley.  Go ahead and laugh.  Anyway, I had to wear tights... and hated them.  And comments... boy, did I get comments.  Things like "oh, I see you got the part because of your talent," to "don't you get tired of being typecast."  I'd never realized that such a blessing could be such an embarrassment.

Non-digestable

Well, it's Thursday morning and I e-filed my Income Taxes this AM.  I'm getting money back, but then I always get money back.  Hopefully I'll get a refund next year as well - that's a bit iffy since as a single person I fall into that category where I may earn just too much money.  Yessiree, I'm one of those 'special' tax payers who may not benefit from this wonderful tax overhaul.
I saw where the Idiot Jerk in the White House threw another bone to Social Conservatives yesterday, permitting health care workers to deny services if they go against their "religious beliefs."  This is another example of how selling your soul to the Idiot Jerk in the White House will get you what you want.  As usual, there's no way this isn't going to end up in the courts.  These people are so caught up in their own personal, self-centered, self-aligned beliefs they totally fail to grasp reality, that getting their way will not move the country down a socially conservative path.  Rather, historically the evidence is that the exact opposite is what occurs.  The direct result of their pressure is to move the country farther to the 'left.'
And a new poll shows a majority of Americans strongly disapproving of the Idiot Jerk.  People just can't stomach him.  I used to think that this would bother him, now not so much.  You see, he is such a petty, small minded individual all he needs is one group of people to kiss his ass and praise him, like the Social Conservatives.  That makes them just as phony.  Do they care?  About as much as he cares.  You only have merit and value if you kiss his ass.
Anyway, I bought myself a new helmet.

Red, of course.  It kind of looks like I have a shiny muffin on my head.  Do I care what it looks like?  Hell no.  Just as long as it does what it's supposed do in case I do a header over the handlebars.
Also, Big Seig dug the squeaker out of one of the purple squirrels this morning and was running around the house with it in his mouth.  Squeak, squeak, you know?  I had to take it from him because he has a bad habit of swallowing them, and being non-digestable he always end up vomiting them back up... along with the rest of the contents of his stomach, which is what most of the American people want to do when they think of the Idiot Jerk in the White House.

Accountability

Okay, so here it is... Thursday.  I get to work today, tomorrow, and Saturday - then I'm off for 2 days.
Jason, from World Cup Cycle and Ski called yesterday, my new bike is in... A Month Early!  When I'd picked up the X6 two weeks ago I'd been told that shipment had been delayed and it wouldn't be here until 1/15/18.  Now I'm going to pick it up on Monday!!
Surprise, surprise, Roy Moore is still refusing to admit he got his ass wiped at the polls by black women, not that a lot of smart white people didn't vote for Doug Jones, but it was the black women that put him over the top.  That must be a knife in his crazy, white, Christian heart.  Of course accountability also comes into play.  I don't know why, but for some reason Social Conservatives think that all they need to do is say the Believe, and ask for Forgiveness, that once they've done those 2 things accountability flies out the door.  It doesn't.  Roy Moore thought he was Special.  The fact that he isn't is totally beyond his comprehension.  No doubt he thinks he's been Betrayed.  Repeating that last sentence while trying to sound like Wallace Shawn gives it true value.

"You believe my accountability betrays me?!  Ha!"

Anyway, we have just 11 more days until Christmas, out of those 11 days I have to work 7 - business in the flooring department is going to be dead.  I'm also scheduled to work New Year's Eve till 6 PM and New Year's day until 7...  like what kind of freaking moron is going to go out on New Year's Day and buy carpeting?  Anyway, I'll probably be out early on the 31st and probably out early on the 1st.  They don't like working people both days.  The scheduling is no doubt a bit screwy because one of my fellow associates is Kurdish and she's going back to Kurdistan for 2 months.  I told her to bring back souvenirs.

Monday Notes

Just some notes before I rush off to see my surgeon.
Russell Tovey playing an Out Gay Superhero fighting Nazis sounds like it should be right up my alley since I'm killing them in Wolfenstein II.  Evidently the CW has some sort of 2 night cross-over event in which this becomes TV reality.  Well, I watched the trailer this morning and wept... with dismay.  This is crappy, shitty TV written for people who have a maturity level comparable to that of 13 year old children, and Russell's story line appears to be minor.  Why,  they even have him wearing some sort of helmet mask.  Boo!  Hiss!

Oh, and evidently those Crazy Christian Conservatives in the House have tacked in a boatload of special shit in their version of the GOP tax bill which pretty much proves they have declared War on every thing they hate.  There is a problem, however, everything thing they hate is pretty much status quo for a large majority of Americans.  Tax Free Churches?  They should be allowed to tell their parishioners and congregations who to vote for in elections, and of course you know that if you don't vote they way they want you to you're going to burn in hell.  This will only get worse as long as the Idiot Jerk is in the White House.  You see, he loves them because they kiss his ass, they shower his ego with looooovvvve.  Idiots, all of them.
And since I won't be watching Russ this evening on the CW, I purchased "American Gods" the first season, for $10.  Watching something like that might cause a Social Conservative to pluck out his eye.

Wattle I Do With This

Sometime between the ages of 50 and 55 human skin begins to lose it's resiliency (it loses its stretchiness) which means if you start toning, or losing weight, it doesn't necessarily snap back to the way it looked when you were... oh, say 19.  Yesterday, while I was shaving, I notice a little fold of skin about an inch below my Adam's Apple.  I froze, staring at it, realizing I was looking at a prepubescent wattle - that's right, it's just starting... spread.  Shit.  They're prevalent on my father's side of the family.  My Grandmother had a whopper.  Not wanting that, I will most likely have it removed since I don't want to look like a chicken.
Anyway, as I was thinking about writing this, I thought I'd grab a pic or two of chicken wattles to show what I was talking about and got smacked right in the my forehead with reality.  This is what I'm talking about.

Chickens are the descendants of dinosaurs!  If this is what happened to Raptors, what will happen to us, to our own species?  Currently geneticists are saying our skin will be darker and our cheekbones will be higher which is really, really bad news for Social Conservatives, especially White Evangelicals who refuse to believe in evolution because it makes them wrong.  Still, it's happening.  And there is no way to stop it.  In America alone the population is much browner than it was 25 years ago.  Dominant genes, you know?  And sure, Conservatives can try and surgically remove the color ratio, but they will fail.  There is no stopping that omnipotent power called the Universe.
So, 7 or 8 years from now, when my wattle is much more pronounced, will I have it removed?  Probably. but then I understand that's only a superficial change and nothing more because I know that damn thing will grow back, it is part of what makes me who I am whether I like it or not.

Dog Tired

Even though they were predicting storms to smash through the area yesterday, we had... about 20 minutes of rain.  Looking on the map, the big storm that came through the Pittsburgh area split into two parts, one skirted us to the north, the other was much farther to the south.  This is how it goes.
Me?  I did some painting.  Baked another loaf of bread also, with a new recipe which is much better than the one I'd been using... using olive oil.  Tasty!  And since the weather was mostly just over cast and humid, and because I was home, the dogs could go in and out as often as they liked.  They played inside.  They played outside.  We played fetch (Lily likes to play fetch much more than Seig).  I pulled a couple of squeaky balls out from under the dresser where they'd gone to hide so the dogs could squeak and chase each other around the house.  Later, when my friend Betsy called, they were... dog tired.

And I saw this morning that the Idiot in the White House had some sort of Twitter breakdown yesterday...  doesn't this seem like it happens at least once a week.  I suspect this is because for most of his life every time someone criticized him his standard response was "sue their ass off and shut them up," except he can't do that now.  In fact, as I said to Betsy last night, "it wouldn't surprise me if every other word out of his mouth was 'fuck,'" in private, of course.  And the bit about the pardons?  Sorry, but if you pardon someone isn't that tantamount to admitting guilt?  And isn't it also sending the message that "you can do what ever you want," but only to certain people, the 1%, the wealthy?  The Idiot in the White House is a walking, talking, and Tweeting catastrophic event for the GOP and everybody who rooted for him and who voted for him.  The NRA?  Basically, they backed an individual who's turning into a traitor to the Constitution.  Just wait until he starts worrying about all of the 'armed and dangerous bad people out there.'  And the Social Conservatives?  Ooops, pardon me, but your hate is showing rather blatantly.
Anyway, this is my 2nd day off and I'm thinking of going to get my haircut.  Tough life, eh?

Small minds of the GOP

For years the GOP has been compared to a 3 legged stool because the only way it can function as a political party is by making sure each leg takes up its share of the balancing act.  That stool is wobbly as hell right now.  You see for years the Economic / Fiscal Conservatives were happy just as long as they kept getting tax breaks and loop holes; they didn't care if the part kowtowed to the Social Conservatives just as long as they could keep putting money in the bank.  And the Social Conservatives thought they were the elite consciousness of the party, even though they like to label Liberals as elitists.  And the Foreign Policy Conservatives were happy because they like us to be the World's Police Force, they love to be important.
But then something terrible happened.  They managed to get George W. Bush elected and things started to go to shit; 9/11 proved they weren't keeping the nation safe and sound, and they lied about weapons of mass destruction.  Oh, and the GOP spent money like it was going out of style.  They were also the party in charge when the country suffered the 2nd worst economic disaster in history (and, of course, they blamed Clinton.)  The stool was wobbling back and forth so hard it was a wonder it kept standing.

And so the GOP turned towards the only leg they seemed to have left to stand on, the Social Conservatives.  Almost immediately they started claiming they were under attack.  Their flawed line of reasoning being that if you're not doing what they want you to do, then you must be attacking them.  Suddenly, they saying there was a war against Christianity.  However, instead of steadying the stool, they only added more to the wobble.

Now, all three legs are trying to beat the shit out of each other.  The Social Conservatives are promoting their hate by creating laws that discriminate and the Fiscal Conservatives are saying Hell No, we need to make money and your stupid rules are hurting us.  The Foreign Policy Conservatives have stabbed themselves so many times with Benghazi, and email charges, and more blame against Clinton, they're barely standing.  Small minds do terrible things.

If Donald Trump is right, come July, this whole thing is going to be torched.  Ah, well, that's life.