Cheaters

 We have about a 55% chance of rain today.  That's okay.  I work 6.5 hours.  That means I get a lunch break.  Lunch will be leftover beef stew.  I made some yesterday at the same time I was baking an olive oil spice cake.  Tasty stuff.  I like spice cakes.  I added walnuts because... well, I like nuts, too.  I like olive oil cakes, too; their moistness is incomparable, though I'm thinking of adjusting the recipe, cutting back on the oil, at least for one cake to see what happens.

However, I must admit that other than baking the cake, I spent most of yesterday as a slug, checking out the news, watching random YouTube videos, napping on and off.  

After over 100 hours, I've pretty much had it with Elden Ring.  While the game was fun, there were issues.  In most games increased experience is what lets you 'level up' (as Bastille sings in Distorted Light Beam).  In Elden Ring you level up by gaining runes, which you get by killing enemies, selling gear, or cheating.  I'm at level 88. To level up I need over 46,000 runes.  To get that many, I have to grind my way through areas I've already completed to slowly increase the number of runes I have, as a result some players have discovered ways to farm runes.  There are also ways to cheat.  Players put out videos on YouTube as tutorials: one guy, who was at level 731, cheated.  I have no patience for cheaters.  If they cheat in a video game, they'll cheat in life.

And what about Alex Jones' $45 + fine?  He thought he could cheat his way out of paying anything by having his company declare bankruptcy.  However, the fine is being levied against him, not his company.  And there are 2 more settlement cases waiting for him up in Connecticut.

And, finally, the Biden Administration is going to pass some major legislation this weekend, and it turns out most of the country approves.  Gas prices are going down, and approval for Democrats is going up.  This does not mean that the MAGA base is no longer a jellified cluster fuck, just that a majority of Americans is realizing that their extremism needs to be permanently checked.

The Order of the Moral Degenerate

 Hello Work Week!  Don't it just fill you excitement to know you're going to spend 8 hours today in a cube, or an office, or at a desk, dealing with issues, or people?  I know I get to go to work... for 8 hours and sit the flooring desk, and deal with customers.  I can honestly tell you that my excitability bucket is nowhere near to overflowing.  It's not even close to being full.  However, I just paid my quarterly garbage / sewage bill so today's hours will allow me to keep banking my social security checks while only working part-time hours.  

Yesterday, a day I didn't work, was a day of mostly accomplishment.  I didn't take a single nap!  The lawn was mowed, laundry was done, grocery shopping completed, and the dishes?  hand washed, not popped into the dishwasher.  And I still had time for a long phone conversation with a friend to set up plans for next Sunday and get some Super Special armor in Elden Ring.

I also spent some time dickin' putzin' around with my TV.  I can't sign into Google Play Store, which is why the Paramount + app didn't update.  Shit.  I rebooted the TV, the router, cleaned up the Paramount cache.  Nothing was working, so I deleted the app and signed up for Paramount + through Amazon Prime; .99 a month for 2 months before the 9.99 charge kicks in.  I can probably live with that.

Here's another picture during my glory days in the Navy.   The date is Sept 73, which means it was taken almost 49 years ago.  I was 22 at the time. The blue thing in my hand was a piece of cloth that unraveled.  A few of us gave it a name as though it were a pet, Cleetus, if I'm remembering correctly.  Soon after it was thrown into the trash.

Politically, yesterday was fairly quiet.  There was a bunch of banter about Bannon's bullshit.  While most of us are smart enough to know he never had Executive Privilege, I'm sure MAGA world must be spinning on its head: a loyal member of the Order of the Moral Degenerate has lost his protected status.  Son of a bitch!  Will Bannon squeal?  Well, the January 6 committee may have to delicately parse his words to find slivers of truth as he belches out his testimony.

And finally, has anybody heard from Mark Meadows lately?  Cassidy Hutchinson mentioned him multiple times and we've heard nothing from his camp.  Could it be he's crawled so far back under his rock that we'll never hear from him again?   Or is there something else going on?

All about wretches

Odd schedule today.  I don't have to be at work until 2:30 PM, and I only work for 4.5 hours.  Mondays are usually 8-hour days for me, not that I mind, there are always chores to be done.

I have ants in the kitchen, by the sink.  Fairly large ones.  Even though I hate to do it, I'll bring some ant spray or ant traps home from work, since the big ones can be destructive.  

Enterprise Car Rental was also called.  They placed a $100 security deposit on my debit card for the car I rented while mine was being repaired.  My insurance company covers everything, so last Saturday I get a voice mail / text telling me they were processing a credit.  So far, no credit.

Also, my old X-6 Cannondale sold, and World Cup Ski and Cycling mailed me the check and... no check, and it was mailed on 5/8, and they're dawdling.  Hopefully the replacement check will be waiting to be picked up shortly.  I told them mail service here in Enola is screwed up.  Instead of delivering mail from our post office, everything comes out of the Camp Hill post office by part-timers who don't have fixed routes.  Centralization is evidently this is part of DeLoy's plan on making the postal service more profitable.  As a result, mail is frequently delivered to the wrong people, and quite often those 'wrong' people simply throw it into the trash.

I took a picture of me as a 'wretch' character I'm playing in Elden Ring.  Good news, I now have clothing, I just put it on until I level up, which will probably be sometime this evening or tomorrow.  Then I'll be snazzy.

I saw this humorous article in The Guardian about Herschel Walker and which voters want to vote for him.  If you need a clue, think white people... white people who think black people will vote for him because he's black.  If you were to tell them their thoughts are systemic racism, they'd look at you dumbly.  Need I say anything more?  As for Herschel, it seems as though a lot of what he says simply isn't true.  He was never at the top of his graduating class in college.  Not only was he never at the top of his class, but he also never graduated.  Oops.  And, if he tries to hit you for a donation to a charity?  Watch it.  It seems as though as though the charities for which he gets paid to be a spokesperson aren't really charities.  Let's be honest here, I may be a nearly naked wretch (with a fab body) in Elden Fields, in the real-world Hershel Walker turns out be nothing more than one more duplicitous conservative wretch.

Lie and Cheat

 Sometimes my weekend begins on Friday, and sometimes it's just another day off for me.  Today, my weekend has already begun.  I slept in.  I enjoy that.  So do the dogs.  Around 0600 Lily had to go potty outside, but after that we both went back to sleep.  Today might be busy.

While back at work yesterday, I told several people how I had said "shut up, you old bitch," to a fellow associate.  Every response was the same.  They all laughed.  Not one person chastised me.  No one said, "wow, maybe you shouldn't have done that."  This says more about the person I yelled at, rather me, which is a shame.  We should all try and respect everybody's opinion, however that's difficult when they have no respect for any opinion but their own.

My new mouse came yesterday.  In case I hadn't mentioned it, I bought myself a new Razer gaming mouse.  It's nice.

I also bought a copy of Elden Ring.  It's a video game written by George R. R. Martin, the same guy who wrote the Game of Thrones series, which means it's probably all the same violence with all the same sex.  Most of the trailers are 'age restricted' on YouTube, this is the only one that wasn't.

And here in Pennsylvania we are heading into a recount among the Republicans.   If you remember backto the General Election of 2020, recounts were never kind to the Moral Degenerate, Trump.  He always lost votes, never coming close to gaining all the votes he lied about losing.  Yesterday was the 2nd day he advised Dr. Oz to cheat.  No surprise there.  This doesn't say much for those Christian Nationalists believe the Orange Anus was sent by God.  Ouch.  

Let's be honest here.  If the deity I believed to be omnipotent had sent Donald Trump to build the socially conservative America I was praying for, and Donald Trump's advice was to Lie and Cheat in order to achieve that dream, I'd become a little suspicious of that omnipotence.  Holy Shit.  Omnipresent and omnipotent are not really as powerful as they're cracked up to be.  Or.... maybe they are, just not in this universe.