Carnivores

 Well, the rain has come and gone.  The sun is shining.  The temps are going to hover around in the mid 40s (F) all day.  You'll not find me complaining about that.  The same thing's going to be true for tomorrow.  Nice.  I feel like doing more when the sun is out.  As for the rain... how much did we get?  A lot.  All of Central PA is under flood warnings.  Small streams are above flood stage.  And sitting here, typing this, I can look out my side window and see the sun glinting off of the Susquehanna river.  Yep, it's only 3/4 of a mile away.

Yesterday I started on the tile work in my kitchen.  Just a small section was tiled, but more is on the way.  Today, I want to paint another 1/3, which would just leave the space behind the refrigerator needing to be painted.  Also, I want to do do more sections of tile.  I'm going to wait to grout until all of the tiling has been completed.  I suspect most of this will be done by the end of this week, which means next week I'll be moving onto the floor.  I will be glad when that's finished.

And one of the things I've noticed this winter is that not all of the robins have flown south.  For those who don't know, robins are carnivorous and will stick around as long as there are insects, and worms, and meatier things for them to eat.  To me, this says a lot about Global Warming.  I took this picture of a robin yesterday.  Earlier in the day, he was flipping leaves over looking for dinner.

I saw that the National Review is telling Republicans that they should not, and cannot nominate Trump.  This is truly amusing.  They can see Republican self-destruction looming in front of them and they are powerless to stop it, of course, you have to remember, once he was elected in 2016 they had no problem with him, as long as he gave conservatives what their dirty hearts were praying for.  They were as pleased as punch to say, "shut up, we're in charge," so much so, that they ignored all of the ugliness shitting away just below his orange skin.  Instead of trying to tamp down his hate rhetoric, they chose to allow him to do what he wanted, and say what wanted, without a single though to the damage he was doing.  Now they're suffering through the court cases, and the indictments, and the far right looking crazier, and crazier by the day.  Conservatives have always had a problem with thinking things through.  Now they've screwed themselves.  The National Review is recommending the GOP nominate either Haley or DeSantis, neither of which, they're telling themselves, will be nearly as bad for Conservatives as Trump is, and will be if he happens to get the nomination.

Nasty as Hell

 Well, hello Weekend.  While today maybe Saturday for a lot of you, today is my Sunday since I have to work tomorrow... and Monday.  But then I do have another weekend.  In fact, next week I will be working 4 (count 'em) days, though they will not all be 8-hour long days.  I am part-time, remember?

Yesterday turned out to be a bit of a slugfest for me.  I played the part of a slug.  I did clean the one aquarium, and I went to the store, and also put some work in on The Body Under Ice, but mostly I sat around waiting for The Elden Ring to load.  Holy Crap.  Hours and hours it took.  As with all games, there is a tutorial prolog to play through to teach you which buttons on the controller do what.  However, the second I exited the tutorial, I got my ass killed by a big knight with a big sword.  As for character, I'm playing as a male wretch, which means I get to run around wearing only a G-string.  Don't worry, at some point I will get a cape to make myself more dashing.

Temp wise, today's supposed to hit a high of 95 (F).  Global warning, you know?  

Flower wise?  My buds are finally beginning to bloom!

And we need to begin prepping now for the November elections, not so much because a majority of us will find them earthshattering.  Rather, we will need to deal with all the Q'anon crackpots like Doug Mastriano who will not take losing badly lightly.  They desperately want to adhere to the belief that Trump was sent by the deity they worship to make America socially conservative.  All deniers need to believe that they have the power, that they have been chosen to lead America down their crookedly righteous past.  To even consider otherwise would be to commit blasphemy.  Losing marks that authority as being weak, and that cannot be.  Understand this, these losers will be nasty as Hell.

Climate Change

 So, the new work week begins today.  I'm scheduled for a full 8 hours.  Of course, I only work 2 other days this week, Wednesday and Sunday, so I guess I'll survive.

And yesterday was steady at work.  I will tell you, for all the griping about the economy, we are busy as hell.  They may have started some pre-Black Friday sale-a-thon I'm not aware of, but customers were packing in through the front doors until late afternoon.  

And I'm kind of not dealing with a customer from California over the phone.  He wants to have in-stock blinds installed.  We don't do that for several reasons, the biggest being there's a good possibility we're not going to have the proper width blinds in stock.  I told him this when he set up the measure.  I've repeated this several times and he keeps saying, "we've got to figure out how to get the blinds at a lower price, it's a rental."  If he wants in-stock blinds, he will need to send his maintenance person, if he has a maintenance person, into the store to buy them, and then install them.  Maybe he should have thought of this before buying an investment property 4000 miles away.

And now a bit about Climate Change.

Everybody except Conservatives and certain religious groups understand this is happening, they deny because of their greed, or their preference of scripture over science, or both.  Because of this group, the coming changes will be devastating for some.  Besides droughts, floods, storms and fires, one of the things Climate Change will do is spur Evolution.  Those who can better survive the heat will adapt and thrive.  The same is true for animal and plant life.  Greed may be tempered for a while.  What will definitely go extinct is the life we know of today.  Religious beliefs will also either evolve or die off.  The weak Climate Accord over 200 countries signed will slow this process down, but not stop it.  This is good in that the longer we have, the number of species that can adapt and survive will increase.  What will we look like in a couple hundred years?  I would not be surprised if the Sahara blooms again.

Fools

 Ah, the last day of August.  For most of you out there, like here in Central PA, this has been a very hot summer.  I can remember a time when a string of days when the thermometer was constantly in the mid to up 90's (F) was called a Heat Wave.  Now?  The temps need to register in the low 100's (F) for that to happen.  Global Warming, you know?  That thing a large number of Americans still don't believe in because it cuts against the grain of their socially conservative beliefs.  Fools.

Over the next couple of days the temps are are supposed to be moderate, in the low to mid 80's (F).  I'm up for that.  We're approaching a seasonal change.  One of my neighbors who has spent most of the summer disparaging the heat said the stupidest thing to me yesterday.  "I hope this means we have a warm winter."  Evidently her mind has a problem understanding the relationship between a warm winter and a hot summer, or that one is most likely going to lead to the other.  Fool.

While I am on Twitter, I don't follow the Idiot Jerk in the White House.  I understand there are literally millions who follow him, not because they like him, rather they do so to mock the Hell out of his Tweets.  It's not the responses he cares about, just the number of followers.  He would never follow any of these people, in fact the loudest voices he would like to silence.  Who does he follow?  Conspiracy theorists.  He desperately wants to turn their "what ifs" into reality, especially those that are negative.  The fool still believes in the old 'divide and conquer' cliche.  You split them apart by trying to throw as much shit at them as you can find.  He loves his conspirators without understanding how big of a fool they make him look.  His brain is already fried.  They make it worse.  To prove how badly his neurotransmitters are, I'm going to borrow a bit from an old PSA.

These are Conspiracy Theories

This is his brain on Conspiracy Theories

He is as big of a fool as a back alley junkie.

All for a Biscuit

Crap, here it is Thursday and I haven't even hit my Hump Day yet (insert my favorite 3 words).
I guess they are forecasting cold for the next 2 days and then another warm up.  Very shortly, in just a day or two, we shall be halfway through our very mild winter.  In this part of the country our temps usually hang around in the low to mid 30's, but not this year.  We're averaging about 10 degrees (F) warmer than normal.  This must be pissing the hell out of fuel companies.  They can charge us as much as they want and so are not going to make their fiscal forecast.  Oh... woe is me.  If I was religious I'd say this was God's work, but I'm not.  Fuel companies are blaming the Devil because he's keeping them from hitting plan.  Think about that.
A funny thing about Bernie's win in New Hampshire.  Evidently he scratched out his little victory because there were still too many candidates in the field.  Looking at the voting stats, this just happens to be the case.  What he really needs to do is thank Tulsi, and Uncle Joe, and Andrew, and Tom Steyer, you know who I'm talking about... the Centrist Candidates.  Prepare yourselves, as more candidates drop out, the bitter Bernie face is going to return.  The fact that he's running as a Democrat because the Independents don't want him, that independent candidates lose horrendously, shows a delusional old man desperately trying to feed his ego.
A note to the wise, don't believe the Idiot Jerk's propaganda machine.  They're spewing out tons of garbage about how Democrats are ready to throw in the towel, how they fear the Idiot Jerk is going to win a second term.  Well, that's bullshit.  Of course, there are those out there saying "I don't know how we can beat him."  If you're one of those who say that, you're doing exactly what they want you to do.  Stop it.  We need to all turn into scumbag busters. We do this by growing a backbone.  Do not let a minority group dictate the way you live your life.  Remember, this is not about voting for the candidate that rings your bell, it's about putting a stake in the heart of pure evil.
I mean, if I had to vote for my favorite candidate it would be for this guy right here:

Handsome, isn't he?  Of course he'd make a terrible president.  He'd give you whatever you want for a biscuit.

Stemin'

Today is September 1.  We have what? 21 days of summer left?  Is everybody ready for the Autumnal Equinox?  I am.  They are forecasting a heat wave next week.  Ninety degree temps are coming back, not that they really left us.  There was an interesting article in the NYT this AM.  By 2060 the number of 90 (F) days for people living in Richmond, VA will double.  I probably will not be around.  I couldn't help but chuckle.  You see, if it's that bad in Virginia, imagine how bad it will be in those Crazy Christian states farther to the south.  Those people down in Georgia, and South Carolina, and Alabama?  They're going to think they've died and gone to hell.  Maybe this is how Judgment works.  They aren't too keen on science.  In fact, a lot of them do as much as humanly possible to keep science out of their schools.  Perhaps if science didn't quickly begin to dismantle their core beliefs this wouldn't be the case.  Unfortunately science answers questions their faith tells them to ignore.  Like the age of the Earth.  Or why aren't their dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible?  And these people want to run the country.  Holy Shit!
An associate of mine keeps telling me I should get Twitter just to read the Idiot Jerk's Tweets.  He reads them aloud.  I will have to admit, many of them are hysterical as hell.  He makes as much sense as one of those Crazy Christians... maybe that's why they like him so much.  What are even funnier are the retorts he gets.  Reading his Twitter account gives you a really good idea how much people really hate this guy.  I mean, they really do.  They are constantly calling him names.  "Liar" pops up so often you know he doesn't read his responses.  His ego lives for sensationalism.  Turning him off is a little stake in his heart...  Just think what would happen if everybody disconnected at once.  Buildings might topple at the sound of his deafening shriek of pain.  Only then will he realize how much he is hated.  He'd be suffering through steam heat without any love...  Oh, and don't worry, it won't be long before we'd get to see him dance.... of course, ankle chains pretty much only let you shuffle.

After today I have a 3 day weekend.  That will be so nice.  Of course, it is going to be stinkin' hot.

...Action...

Sunday, and some of you are sleeping in.  Not me.  I got a 6.25 mile ride in.  I'm happy with that since my last ride was 13 days ago.  One thing I'm going to start is Training Sessions rather than ride.  Even though you may want to think that has something to do with our pixie from Hell Attorney General, it has more to do with building leg strength.  Tomorrow will be my first shot.  I've chosen a 30 minutes workout.  We shall see how it goes.
Outside we have overcast skies - showers and possible thunderstorms are on the way.  The high temp is supposed to top off at around 66 F.  Now ain't that ducky?
My vacation is now 8 days away.  I can not wait.
Oh, and we are now in hurricane season.  True most of the whopper storms don't get here until the fall, but we've already had Albert... or was it Alberto?  Don't quite remember.  Evidently everything that has sustained winds of over 39 mph is being named.  I suspect the weather pattern we are in now might be an bi-product of Albert... or Alberto.  We're supposed to be getting stronger storms this year... global warming, you know?  That thing Conservatives desperately want to deny.  I mean, portions of the coastline becoming uninhabitable?  Preposterous.
Sad to see that "Solo" is slowly failing tat the box office.  This is a painful lesson for Disney.  There is not an unquenchable appetite for all things Star Wars.  From what I've read, however, this film had problems from the start.  Two directors that weren't meeting expectations were fired and Ron Howard was brought in..... Ron Howard.  Now, I like some of his films.  "A Beautiful Mind" was very, very good.  However, when I think of possible directors for high paced, science fiction, adventure films his name does not dance gracefully to the tip of my tongue.  And Alden Ehrenreich, who was good in "Hail Caesar," was apparently miscast.  Not every actor is an action / adventure hero.  That's a shame.

 Still, I'm fairly certain I'll go see it either Wednesday or Thursday evening.