The Only Thing a Republican is Good At

Well, it's raining in Central PA.  That's the forecast for both today and tomorrow.  I'm planning on going anywhere, except to Giant.  I need milk.  Yesterday the temps got up to 51 (F).  Inside, the temps got up to 73 (F).  This helps save money on the natural gas bill, especially since rates went up.  Wowza.  On the budget plan I used to pay between $55 and $60 a month (heat, hot water, and cooking).  Now it's $82 per month.  Electric rates went up as well.  So did water.  There was a time when utilities weren't so focused on their profit.  Greedy is in.

I've about 20 pages left on the book.  That's right, I'm in the denouement chapter.  In The Body Under Ice, it's not so much as secrets getting revealed, as it is putting the pieces together.  As Eli says, "the dots are coming together.  A picture is forming."  Writing the denouement chapter is always the funnest part of the book for me.

Being that I like my rock and roll, I was glad to see one of my most favoritest groups dropping a new video yesterday.  Fall Out Boy is releasing a new album March 24.  I'm excited.  Here's the video.

Of course, the United States is going to hit its debt ceiling sometime today.  As expected, the Republicans, who had no problem kicking that baby as high as they wanted under the Orange Anus, want to use it to attack Social Security and Medicare.  I laugh because their non-thinking base will go along with whatever the party says, even if it obliterates their future.  The last time the Republicans had this slim of a majority in the House was in 1963.  Times were different then.  They didn't have insurrectionists among their ranks.

But this Congress has a terrible problem: some of its members are under investigation for the January 6 attempted coup.  How do you remove a Republican from Congress?  You arrest him.  This is why Jimmy Jordan put together his anti-investigation committee.  These traitors are desperately trying to find out just how far along the investigations are, if their close to being completed.  Sadly, there's nothing they can do except wait, and create chaos, and havoc.  It seems that's the only thing they're any good at.

 

Shorty

It's Monday... my day off (notice to the singularity)... and it's snowing.  We're only supposed to get another 1 - 3 inches before it switches over to... mixed precipitation.  That change is not going to happen until later this evening though the ice accumulations is only supposed to be about 1/10th of an inch.
They threw the Grammy's last night.  Didn't watch.  Never do.  I like my female vocalists to actually vocalize rather than sound like they are expirating helium.  The same thing goes for male vocalists; give me a baritone with range rather than a 'high ball' tenor - I don't find falsetto listenable.  I did see Fall Out Boy's "MANIA" got a nomination for best rock album... didn't win.  And for a bit of humor, I saw that the chick who won best Gospel has really big, really blond hair, I mean like almost inflatable big; goes with the territory I guess.  There was a time when a Grammy win figured into my record buying habits and as a result I own a lot of vinyl I now regret purchasing.
In case you didn't see... we're heading for another shutdown.  That's right, the government's going to be 'closed for business' one more time.  Am I like the only one who's recognized how often this is happening under this administration?  This is because the Republican concept of negotiation and compromise revolves totally around one simple statement:  "This is what we want."  They are not now and never will be open to any variation on that demand.  Democrats will say "well, we'll give this if you give us that," and the Republicans say "This is what we want."  Going into these negotiations the Republicans realized they were not getting any money for the Idiot Jerk's racist wall.  Of course, there are going to be other sticking points since the Republican idea of immigration reform is "Keep out the brown people."
This Sunday evening we have the Oscars.  I'll watch them.  This year will be interesting because there is no host.  Originally Kevin Hart had been slated to handle the Master of Ceremonies job, but then he suddenly dropped out over past homophobic comments he'd made.  Personally, I think that was a front, a cheap excuse to cover up the real problem with Kevin Hart.  You see, the man is tiny.  Little.  Short.  His biography lists his height as 5 feet 4 inches.  He was on a talk show where he claimed to be 5 feet 4.5 inches but eventually, after much back and forth between he and the host, admitted to being only 5 feet 2 inches tall.  He is almost a short person.

I'm betting his agent looked him in the eye and said "bad move, everybody in the world is going to start calling you 'shorty.'"  Thanks to movie magic, in "Jumanji" he was only a few inches shorter than Dwayne Johnson, in real life Dwayne's more than a bit taller.

Maybe he should start singing Gospel, that way he could himself some big hair.

Compost this

Thursday morning.  Yippee.  Tomorrow is my hump day.  Next week I only work 32 hours, but the following 2 weeks I'm scheduled for 40 each.  Shit.
I just finished another 45 minute cardio session... and feel good.  I always listen to music, in fact I have a playlist consisting of Sam Hall (Yeah, he's country, but only one song) as warm-up...

followed by Steve Grand, Kongos, Fall Out Boy, and Imagine Dragons.  I had bought the new Mumford and Sons album hoping there might be something good on it.  Wrong, the thing is terrible.  Every song starts off the same way (except one).  Their last album Wilder Minds was decent - it's one of the things I listen to while cycling.  But the new one?  Delta?  Sounds a lot like they're congratulating themselves on being so profound.  They're not.  I gave it a bad review.
I saw that the Veteran's Administration underpaid a lot of veteran's education benefits.  They say it was a glitch.  Under the Idiot Jerk in the White House, the VA has been sorely tested.  At one point, remember, he actually had tried to put the White House physician in charge... until people found out he was a legalized drug dealer.  Is it any wonder the military is not too fond of him.  He criticized the Navy Seal Command for killing Bin Laden.  Does he really think that plays well with the Navy.  Does he comments like this earns him their respect.  He is anybody but the Commander in Chief.
Finally, I bought a small compost box, or bin, or what you want to call it.  Deliver is on Saturday.  Some assembly required.  I looked at quite a number of models and watched a number of videos before making my final selection.  One of the videos was hysterical as hell, at least I thought so. It was made a woman who was really pleased with her composter.  At one point she took off the lid and took a video of what was inside:  dinner scraps, egg shells, shredded paper (?) and a lot of cigarette butts, in fact, it looked like that was where she dumped her ashtrays.  Someone should have told her cigarette butts do not make for great compost.

Soon

Okay, so here it is Wednesday... and I get to go back to work.
Weather wise?  Overcast with showers, occasional showers and thunderstorms for the next week and a half.  Hell, we're going to sell a shit load of Mold Control!
And it's only going to get worse.  My niece posted an aerial pic of the beach house they're supposed to be staying in... next week.

Notice I said 'supposed.'  There's a good possibility that come Friday that house will have moved much farther inland, piece by piece.  I understand the Idiot Jerk said that Florence is going to be tremendously wet...  Shit, is his mind always in the gutter?  He also said the response to Hurricane Maria was a success (notice, I didn't include the adjective he used).  Of course, since the number of Puerto Ricans living in the Carolinas is a lot less than say... oh, Puerto Rico, things might go better for them.  Well, maybe not, I understand the government has been transferring a lot of funds from the FEMA account to the ICE account.  Illegal aliens, you know?  We'll find out soon enough, won't we?
And there's this little project I've been working on for nearly a year and a half.  Looks like things are finally going to be coming to fruition... and no, I'm not talking about the cantaloupes I planted in the kitchen, though the vines are coming along quite nicely.  Certain things have become indelibly woven into the intricacies of this project.  One of those things which has proven to be integral is the song below.  It's also great for cardio, in case you're wondering.

So, when will this project be revealed?

Soon.

Clad in Plaid

Yesterday was one of those odd days.  The eye appointment was aggravating; driving twenty minutes, arriving on time at 0715, and then being told "oh, we changed your appointment" was not a good thing.  But then something good did happen later.  I went to transfer money from my savings to my checking account so I could pay my car insurance and Wow I discovered a big deposit had been made.  Holy Shit!  I got my Income Tax refund already.  Because I had the paperwork, I filed electronically 2 weeks ago, and that paid off.  I guess nobody else in the country files their taxes that early.  Anyway, since I had that chunk of change in my account, I paid the insurance and then drove down to the Enola K-Mart (which is closing) and bought towels and plaid boxers.  There, in case you were wondering, now you know, it's boxes over briefs.  They are next best thing to letting the wild beast run free.  And almost as good as letting the wild beast run free, is dressing him up in plaid.

Let me tell you, there's nothing better than a nice warm Tartan.
I did my cardio to the new Fall Out Boy album this AM - Mania.  There's only one song that I suspect will have to grow on me, the rest of the music is good.  The only problem I had was this was the first time I listened to it in its entirety which meant I was focusing on the music and not my legs - as a result I only managed to get in 2.1 miles.
Oh, and I saw that the House of Fools run by that minority hate group, the Republicans, has voted to release a sensitive document, a memo written by one of their own, which they claim will show bias in the DOJ.  For this document to have any value the writer would have needed to be an individual above reproach by both parties.  Evidently the Democrats have their own memo, but that minority hate group, the Republicans, voted to repress that document.  Basically what they're doing is releasing something one of their own wrote, using suppositions he cherry picked, to prove the other side is bad.  Think of it as a trial in which only the defendant and his crooked lawyers speak, the prosecution has been locked out of the courtroom.  The only ones who will believe this is their base... and Faux News.
Tonight the Idiot Jerk in the White House get to speak on National TV - like so many of you out there I will not be watching.  Instead I will most likely be playing a video game.  I'm sure I'll have much more fun playing Fallout New Vegas, feeling all warm, and cuddly, and plaid, than I would vomiting.

Fall Out Boy / another Trumpcapade

I spent 33 minutes on the elliptical this morning with Fall Out Boy - it was a bit crowded, but fun.  Back in 2006 Fall Out Boy looked like this:

Now they look like this:

Needless to say, their music has gone from Pop / Indie to Alternative - this is called maturing.  They have a new album coming out in September - "Maniac" and I'm sure it will be great.

On the 'funny side of life,' I saw that the Idiot in the White House has volunteered to testify before the Senate and be '100%' honest.  Get Out!  Do you have any idea how funny this would be?  I mean, be serious.  This butter head couldn't tell the truth if his political career depended on it.. oh, it would.  Picture it, peppered with hard balls from the Left and lobbed slow pitches from the Right.  Can you even imagine him being put on the spot, and staying seated, not walking out?  Not in the least.  The things that would come out of his mouth.  That would be so great.  Of course, it's all bluster just to keep the Trumplodite hoards in check, he knows it will never happen.

We can only hope!